SummaryA love letter to the resilience of the life force, Elizabethtown is a charming, music-filled journey that proves amazing things can happen when you least expect them. (Paramount Pictures)
SummaryA love letter to the resilience of the life force, Elizabethtown is a charming, music-filled journey that proves amazing things can happen when you least expect them. (Paramount Pictures)
That rare animal, a dialogue-driven comedy -- and a good one at that. While one or two of its scenes may seem a tad too talky for today's low-attention spans, the script is mostly razor-sharp acerbic and sophisticated.
Crowe likes to work with large ensembles...But he doesn't know when we've had enough, however interesting they all may be; he's like a guy who decorates a Christmas tree with so many ornaments that you can't see the foliage.
Elizabethtown is a great and hilarious comedy with many reflections of how to appreciate life and understand what's really important in life. This movie tries to bring an interesting message. To me Cameron Crowe succeeded brilliantly. I don't understand all of the criticism towards the movie because I believe that the people and critics who disliked this movie simply weren't open about the main concept and somewhat skeptical. I hear many people saying that Elizabethtown is the worst copy of Garden state. Indeed I believe that it's totally the opposite thing because I believe that Elizabethtown is far superior. This movie has really precious ****'s easy to sympathize with the leading character. Bloom,Dunst and Sarandon gave truly great performances.Orlando Bloom is for the first time rightly cast and I must say I found him really good.Kirsten Dunst was perfect and her performance is not always easy as it would seem. Susan Sarandon was really amazing and is the protagonist of a really funny but nevertheless moving sort of monologue that is the point of the entire movie. Cameron Crowe shows once again that he's a very original director. Simply one of the best of our generation. To enjoy Elizabethtown you have to abandon every last easy judgment. This movie is one of the most original in the recent ****'s not a romantic comedy as it was ****'s about life,hope,love and how to deal with the difficulties of **** how sometimes you need to search of your own origins to build a new **** I was moved by that concept.
Cameron Crowe's romantic-comedy road trip picture is touching, moving and emotional but it does suffer with the cliche's, but writer-director Mr. Crowe has a big heart when it comes to making a story about when you get lost and finding your way back up again into a film. It succeeds as a comedy but somehow as a drama it doesn't because it's predictable, you know were it's going to go but Crowe wants you forget the cliches and want you to focus more on the characters and the situations their going through and care for them also relate to, he succeeds at that when the cliches start popping back up again it makes you groan and it's just so irritating. Orlando Bloom plays Drew, a shoe designer who is on a flight to Kentucky, where his father died of a heart attack, during a family visit. Kristen Dunst plays Claire Colburn, the only flight attendant who meets Drew on a deserted plan, where he is the only one passenger on that plane. He just wants to be alone. She insists he moves up first class, coddles him, makes bright, and she starts a lovely conversation with him. Drew was about to commit suicide on the death exercise bike machine, when the phone call came in about his father's death. He is a successful young shoe designer of the Spasmodica shoe, a popular world-wide shoe but a new product that his boss Phil (Alec Baldwin) informs him that he'll lose $972 million. Drew's suicide plan is now going to wait for the visit to Elizabethtown, where his father is related to half of the population and the best friend on the other half. His mom Hollie (Susan Sarandon) is still hated because she took her husband away from his hometown and family to California. Drew is sent there to represent his mom and his sister's wishes for Mitch's funeral against Mitch's extended family. Ultimately, Claire may not only help Drew get through the arrangements of his father's funereal, but she does provide Drew with a different perspective of his life and drifting him away from his thoughts of suicide. While this movie is a cliche'd drama it does get emotional and works for me, Bloom isn't the great at acting but he's is good at drama and he should be in these roles more often; him and Dunst has decent chemistry on screen which makes the film even more better. It may not be the best film Crowe has ever made and maybe not Oscar "worthy" but it's Golden Globes "worthy" like I said not the best Cameron Crowe movie, but it proves he is one of the best directors. It's skillful reverence of deep beauty melancholy dipped in reality. Grade A-
The film's problems lie with the lack of spark between a wired Dunst and a bland Bloom, and the meltdown of Drew's mother (Susan Sarandon), who grieves by tap-dancing.
Although rich in screwball silliness and sharp one-liners, film lacks the narrative drive one finds in the classic comedies of Preston Sturges, Frank Capra and Billy Wilder, whom Crowe always seems to try to emulate.
It's hard to believe the creative mind that gave us "Almost Famous," "Jerry Maguire," "Say Anything" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" looked up with satisfaction after typing 117 pages of this.
A good rom-com, different original story line, loved Kirsten's character, Susan Sarandon's character was a walk on until the end of the movie when she had a big finish.
This movie is pretty good. The one thing that you have to know before you watch this movie is that if you describe it in one word that word would be: cute. This movie in every sense of the word is cute. Filled with chuckle worthy moments good acting and yeah I'll admit it some pretty hokey moments. It's not a movie for everyone but it certainly is enjoyable. It really doesn't deserve a lot of the criticism it has gotten. The only scary part is seeing Paula Dean dance to Freebird.
Elizabethtown is hit-and-miss. Completely implausible, the film is your stereotypical rom-com in which boys meets girl and etc etc. However, there is an undeniable charm to the film that touches on the small details of life that need to be appreciated and once you open your eyes to them, life seems far better than it did before. At the very least, it shows you that your problems are not as bad as you truly believe they are. Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst have solid chemistry with one another in this piece of pure Southern charm and throwback rock songs that is quintessentially Cameron Crowe. While a far cry from his best films (hello Almost Famous), Crowe's direction is fine though the film does hit the brakes far too often to simply take in the sights. A more assured pace would have been greatly appreciated for this slice of life type of film. However, the film's greatest problem is its one-dimensional characters. Leading to the creation of the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" by one film critic, Kirsten Dunst's character is an embarrassment when it comes to writing and it is clear that the writer had no desire to create a female character. Instead, he focused solely on the man. She has no life of her own other than that which we see with Drew and seems to exist solely to benefit him and make him happy. A tragic misfire in that regard, Elizabethtown is far too typical when it comes to romantic comedies and film in general to truly be anything truly worth your time. As it stands, it is not a bad film, but it is one you have seen before.
A short movie, it didn't bring me to any mood at all.
After the movie, I felt like I just wasted an hour and a half of my life.
I learned something. But still, a very typical movie.
STOP THE CREMATION! Oh my god stop talking in a southern accent Kirsten Dunst . If the entire movie was the last ten minutes this movie would have been pretty chill, but everything is just so convoluted and exaggerated that it is sort of a caricature of itself. Also what's up with the whole shoe b.s? It's shown in the beginning and then mentioned in the late middle, it's a really weird choice to start the movie off with a plot point that will only be vaguely explored later on in the film. I don't know, it's not even comparable to Crowe's other work. Making Almost Famous and then making Elizabethtown is like painting the mona lisa and then taking a crap on a canvas.