Elizabethtown (2005)
Directed by Cameron Crowe
Written by Cameron Crowe
Starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Judy Greer, Susan Sarandon, Paul Schneider
Release Date October 14th, 2005
Published October 13th, 2005
For me, a new Cameron Crowe film is like the release of Lord Of The Rings. I will line up days in advance, I will play the soundtracks of his previous films at obscene volumes and I will pore over the texts of the script as if they held the answer to life itself. Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Say Anything and Singles are not just any other movies. To me they are masterpieces.
So I have been anticipating the release of Elizabethtown ever since the final credits on Vanilla Sky rolled off the screen in 2001. To say I am a little disappointed in Elizabethtown is one of the hardest things I have ever written. By the standards of an average movie Elizabethtown is great. By the standards of Cameron Crowe, however, Elizabethtown is a step backwards.
Orlando Bloom plays Drew Baylor, who looks like a man on his way to his own execution. Drew is a shoe designer for a Nike-esque company in Oregon and his first creation, a shoe called 'Spasmodica', has just failed so spectacularly that the company stands to lose nearly a billion dollars on it's recall. As Drew's boss (Alec Baldwin in a minor cameo) explains, the shoe was so poorly received by the public that one industry observer was quoted as saying the shoe could cause millions of people to return to bare feet.
Fired from the only job he has ever known, Drew returns home with dark intentions. He plans to kill himself and begins fashioning a very unique suicide device involving a kitchen knife and some workout equipment. It must be seen to be believed. Drew's attempt is foiled by his cell phone's unending musical ring which he cannot resist answering.
The call is from his younger sister Heather (Judy Greer). Their father has died. On a trip back to his hometown, the tiny Kentucky hamlet Elizabethtown, Dad had a heart attack. At his mother Hollie's (Susan Surandon) request Drew must go to Elizabethtown and retrieve the body for cremation in Oregon and represent the family in whatever tribute the Elizabethtown Baylor's have planned. The two sides of the family have rarely had contact.
On his flight from Oregon to Kentucky Drew meets Claire, a chirpy stewardess who takes a special interest in making sure he knows where he is going. Claire is obviously attracted to Drew despite, or maybe because, of his morose attitude. She gives him directions to get to Elizabethtown and her phone number in case he gets lost and it seemingly could have ended right there.
When Drew finally arrives in Elizabethtown the culture shock and his newfound family are so overwhelming that he needs to talk to someone and Claire is his choice. The two talk an entire night and get together to watch the sun come up. They agree to be friends but it's clear both are fighting fate. They are meant for each other.
That is the very bare bones of Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, yet another very personal and deeply felt story for Crowe but also one he can't quite get a handle on. There are three important plots in Elizabethtown. First is Drew's failure at work. Second, the family drama including his father's death and meeting his extended family. And third is his romance with Claire. To make this movie work Crowe needed to coalesce each of these three plots into one story. Unfortunately it just never happens.
I enjoyed both lead performances by Bloom and Dunst but the relationship is so far unrelated from the family drama and Drew's work drama that it feels almost like a separate movie. Dunst delivers a character that is very unique. Some might say that she is more fantasy than anything, but I believed that this character would do the things she does. She is quirky and forgiving and troubled in her own ways. It's a complex part that has great potential but there are scenes missing, important scenes and dialogue that might better have integrated her into the rest of the story.
Bloom's performance is complicated for different reasons. He was not the first choice for the role. Initially Ashton Kutcher was cast as Drew. Bloom was the better choice of the two but because Cameron Crowe's male protagonists are so well remembered Bloom is competing with the ghosts of the past and he pales in comparison to the likes of Tom Cruise, John Cusack, Campbell Scott and even young Patrick Fugit from Almost Famous.
Cameron Crowe does not do Bloom any favors in his scripting or direction. Much of Elizabethtown plays like Cameron Crowe's greatest hits. Dunst's character is a mixture of Renee Zellweger's needy but lovable single mom in Jerry Magure and Kate Hudson's ethereal groupie from Almost Famous. Drew's wacky extended family in Elizabethtown are older versions of the wacky neighbors from Singles or the inebriated party goers from Say Anything. And Drew himself carries the DNA of both Jerry Maguire and Lloyd Dobler.
Even the film score, once again lovingly crafted by Crowe's wife Nancy Wilson, feels as if it were lifted from Almost Famous. Check out the scene just after Susan Surandon's exceptional speech at the memorial. Drew and Claire meet in the hallway and the acoustic guitar score comes in just a little too loud. The scene is a poignant moment where Drew tries once again to explain that he and Claire cannot be together. The music in the scene is lovely but sounds almost identical to music used in a scene in Almost Famous where William tells Penny she has been sold out by the band and won't continue with the tour. This may be just the anal retentive Crowe fan in me coming out but it bothers me to hear Crowe simply repeat himself.
Thankfully, the same cannot be said of the film's pop soundtrack. Once again Cameron Crowe brings together an eclectic mix of classic hits and forgotten or overlooked favorites that compliment the story and occasionally comment on it. In the film's climactic scenes in which Drew drives his fathers ashes cross country back to his home in Oregon he is accompanied by an amazing soundtrack that Claire made for him as a sort of musical map of America. The reasoning is contrived but the emotion these scenes and songs evoke are real and very moving. No director mixes pop music, storytelling, and imagery as effectively as Cameron Crowe.
Cameron Crowe movies are known for romance, smart characters, and great music. Elizabethtown overflows with each of those elements but, unfortunately, Crowe cannot corral them all into one story. Each of the individual characters from Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst in the leads to Susan Surandon, Paul Schneider and Loudon Wainwright in supporting roles are all interesting characters but they are all parts of different movies. Bloom shares scenes with each of them and yet seemingly never at the same time.
The romance of Elizabethtown works in individual scenes such as Drew and Claire's all night phone session and the first night they make love and the aftermath the following morning. You definitely root for them to be together. But the movie is as much about this romance as it is about Drew's family, which is in a whole other film.
The family drama is a strong plot. Susan Surandon is exceptional in her one big scene at the memorial in which she does standup comedy, tap dances and reconnects with her extended family by opening up about how much she and they all loved her husband. Crowe does an excellent job of establishing the late Mitch Baylor as another member of the cast. Lovely sepia toned flashbacks of Drew with his father, perfectly aged photos and even the actor laying in the coffin with just the slightest hint of a smile that Drew dubs whimsical all serve to help the audience feel the loss.
The extended family and friends are an interesting collection. I really enjoyed Paul Schneider as Drew's cousin, a failed rock star with an out of control son and a difficult relationship with his father played by Loudon Wainwright. There was some lovingly detailed work in crafting Schneider and Wainwright's characters that are hinted at but the film does not have time to get too into that.
The film would work better if Claire had been as much a part of the family drama in Elizabethtown as she is the romance plot. Crowe never connects her to the family drama, which could have been done simply by making her a family friend from Elizabethtown and not some random stewardess. Put Claire in Elizabethtown, connect her to the family and maybe you can connect the two separate stories. Because she is outside of it the movie is disjointed and it never comes together.
For me, writing even a slightly negative review of a Cameron Crowe movie is torture, but it's undeniable. Aside from the awesome soundtrack, Elton John's "My Father's Gun" is my new favorite song by the way, Elizabethtown only works as a sketch of a good Cameron Crowe movie. A number of good scenes and good characters great music but not a great movie. Fans of Cameron Crowe will find a lot of specific things to love in Elizabethtown: scenes, characters, music. I would recommend it for them with the warning that they may be disappointed by the film as a whole.
