Elizabethtown DVD > Reviews > It should have been something else

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Unmemorable
How does it compare to similar films?	Satisfactory

Advantages:	soundtrack, Orlando
Disadvantages:	Dunst, length, story? !

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Why we picked it
'Twas a Saturday night, and my best mate and I decided that we would forgo our dancing shoes for a change and pop along to the cinema. So, we decided to meet up at 8:30 and watch either Brothers Grimm, or Elizabethtown. Having been devoid of nicotine for sometime, we decided to go first to Sainsbury's and pick some up (so much for my Allen Carr victory), and then have cocktails in Frankie and Benny's, which is next to our Cineworld in Ashford. We therefore decided to see Elizabethtown, which was being shown at 9:20, as opposed to the other which was at 9:00, so we could fit in as much booze and fags as possible. Plus Orlando Bloom is in it, and he is from Kent, so it would only be right so support him by seeing his wondrous body- I mean- film. So there you have our motivation to see the film-completely shallow and self serving.

So what's it all about, Alfie?
Elizabethtown is about a young man called Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), who has worked his butt off for years on a design for a shoe, for the company he works for, at the detriment of his home and his relationship. However, this shoe flops most dramatically, leaving him to blame for the loss of $972 million for the company. His boss Phil (Alec Baldwin) fires him most dramatically (Baldwin is only in it for 5 minutes, so its only right that he is Very Dramatic for these 5 minutes), and so Drew goes home, chucks out all his belongings into the street, and sets about making a very gruesome looking suicide machine, involving an exercise bike, and a kitchen knife.

Then the phone rings, the poor fellow can't even be a success at committing suicide. It's his sister, calling to tell him, that his Dad has died of a heart attack, whilst visiting his hometown, Elizabethtown, Kentucky. His mother uses his dearly departed father's words to sum up what had happened, "If it wasn't this, it would have been something else." So, Drew sets off to Elizabethtown, with his Dad's blue suit, to bring him back for cremation in Oregon, with the plan to continue killing himself as soon as he returns. And Abra Cadabra, we have our title.

En route to his destination, he meets flight attendant Claire (Kirsten Dunst), and as he is the only one on the flight, she proceeds to annoy him for most of the damn journey (actually, he seemed to find it endearing, I found it annoying). She corrects his pronunciation of Louisville (it's Loo-ah-vulle, apparently), and draws him a map of his route. After they land, he tries his best to extricate himself from her grasp, and then she proceeds to screech '60B' (the junction he has to get off at) across the airport at him.

Drew goes home to meet his family, who he hasn't seen since he abandoned them to start a new career in California (or so they keep insisting, even though he lived in Oregon), and so they all think he's a genius, and so he cannot bring himself to tell thewm of his recent failure. There's his cousin Jesse (Paul Schneider) and his repulsive brat of a son (name unknown, but the best excuse for contraception I've ever seen), then a million other family and friends members who loved and lost his father. He battles with the mayor and the family to have his father cremated rather than buried in the plot that had been reserved for him, and then tries to help his sister control his crazy mother (Susan Sarandon), who has taken up organic cookery, tap-dancing and comedy classes, just to take her mind off things.

Drew, at some point during the fun and games with his family, finds the time to ring Claire (seeing as on the map she gave him had ALL her phone numbers written on), and they embark on an all-night phone conversation, resulting in meeting up to watch the sunrise. They decide to that they were better on the phone and part company quickly, but a lot of meetings, engineered purely by Claire, ensue.

Any more plot information would probably give away the ending, so I'll proceed to what I thought.

What I thought
I read a review of this film in Heat magazine, and so should point out here, that I ripped this from it, but it seems utterly true to me. The film doesn't work all that well, because it cannot decide what it's about. Is it about Drew and Claire, or Drew and his family? I can sort of see where Mr Crowe was going, but mixing the two plots just meant to me that the story was a bit runny and bumbling. I'm still not sure what the film is about.

There has been a lot of debate from the critics about the casting, and how it was all wrong. I'm not enough of an expert to comment, but I must say that up till now, I liked Kirsten Dunst. Bu tin this film, she annoyed the hell out of me. I felt the need to get up and shout, "but she's a bunny boiler!" at the screen. Maybe they should have just cast Kim Basinger and had done with it. Her persistent chasing of Drew really did my head in and her 'theories' about everything, and general humbleness grated on me. I also want the girl to stand a little straighter, the slouching is appalling.

Orlando Bloom was gorgeous and convincing throughout, but it still is a mystery to me why they got an English actor to play the part, seeing as the character is America, when they could have cast someone gorgeous and American.

The film also went on for ages. There were several moments that the film could have ended, and been a lot better off as a result, but it seemed to bumble forth, with no regard of the lack of direction it was heading in.

All in all, the film appears to be plotless, and with one of its main characters being irritating as hell, there really isn't much to go on, apart from Orlando, a good supporting cast, and a fairly good soundtrack. It seems more of a show-off time of the supporting cast's talents, rather than an actual story, making the whole film a great big mish-mash, trying to squeeze a bit of everything in.

On a par with Lost in Translation (which I totally did not get either), and utterly not worth the £7 entry fee, wait til it comes to DVD.

Technical Specification
Orlando Bloom - Drew Baylor
Kirsten Dunst - Claire Colburn
Susan Sarandon - Hollie Baylor
Judy Greer - Heather Baylor
Jessica Biel - Ellen Kishmore
Paul Schneider - Jessie Baylor
Paula Deen - Aunt Dora
Loudon Wainwright III - Uncle Dale
Bruce McGill - Bill Banyon

Cameron Crowe - Director
Running time - 121 minutes
Paramount Movies 2005