ELIZABETHTOWN
US, 2005, 124 minutes, Colour.
Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Bruce Mc Gill, Judy Greer, Jessica Biel, Paul Schneider, Luden Wainwright, Gaillard Sartain.
Directed by Cameron Crowe.
This is a strange cinema experience. Just over two hours… of what?
The plotline had potential: bright young man’s shoe invention fails and leads to huge company debts; in the meantime his father dies and he has to leave California to collect the body in Kentucky; his Kentucky kin are friendly but want the father buried there; he befriends a rather desperately extraverted flight attendant; his mother and sister come to the funeral… Actually, it doesn’t end there, but that’s another matter.
The shoe thing is made much of at first with Orlando Bloom (wilting more than a little as he ponders failure and fiasco) reassuring himself with repetitions of ‘I’m fine’ and then confronting the boss (Alec Baldwin, slightly manic as if he were still in court confronting Kim Basinger about child custody). Things are a bit manic at home, especially with Mum (Susan Sarandon) going gung-ho on cooking, stand-up comedy and tap-dancing to deal with her grief.
This is all more than just whimsical – and he has not yet met Kirsten Dunst as the incessantly talking flight attendant. He does not have to be with her for the chat and chatter – we have one of the longest mobile phone conversations in cinema history. (Let’s hope it puts a stop to imitations and homages!)
There’s a lot more but, as the film goes on and one listens to the dialogue, the confusion concerning what’s it all about is not allayed. So much of the dialogue is articulately inconsequential. So, it stops and starts, pauses and digresses (especially with a show-stopping performance where the plot is put on hold for a tour-de-force speech, song and dance by Susan Sarandon at her husband’s wake, and a suggestive story that makes all the previously antagonistic relatives and Kentuckians just love her). Cameron Crowe (as we know from his semi-autobiographical Almost Famous) was a music journalist so he accompanies the plot with continuous hits from the past.
And the ending…? The timeline of all of this makes little sense. Four days are mentioned at one stage but how so much could be done in four days defies belief – and a complainant on the IMDb points out that big jets do not fly from LA to Louisville, so there!). Kirsten has organised a car trip for Orlando back to California with stops programmed to the minute and music to accompany each emotional moment (all when she should have been working on flights to Hawaii).
Perhaps it is just that Elizabethtown is a modern American fairytale land that does not entice audiences to believe in it.
1.The impact of the film? Cameron Crowe’s reputation? This film considered as a failure?
2.The Oregon settings, the business world? The contrast with the south? Southern hospitality, lifestyle? Homes, funeral ceremonies, dances? The contrast with the open road, trekking across America?
3.The title, the focus on the town, the people, Drew and his growing up there, his family? His experience of returning? The effect on him? The musical score? The range of songs? Especially at the end and the focus on Martin Luther King, on the victims of the Oklahoma bombings? Appropriate or not?
4.Drew, his age and experience, away from home? His work, design, the shoes? The mistakes, the failure? The encounter with the bosses, their severity? His losing so much money? The consequences? The effect on himself, suicidal?
5.The phone call, the information about his father? The effect, his decision to go to the funeral? Take delivery of the body? The flight, the few people on board, the encounter with Claire? Her interest in him, the attraction, their discussions?
6.His arrival home? His relationship with his mother, her personality? Strong-minded? The rest of his family? Friends from the past?
7.The body, the preparation for the funeral? The attitude towards cremation? The celebrating of the funeral, the coffin, what it contained? The grief?
8.The discussions? The effect on the family? Heather and Jessie? Their strength of personality, in relationship with Drew? Their mother?
9.The way of coping with the grief, going to the dance? Hollie and the exuberance of her dancing, the expression of her personality, her ded husband?
10.The band, the music, the accident, the fire, the consequences?
11.Claire, her meeting Drew, her being with him, the hotel, their talking, her support of him, his getting strength from her?
12.Her giving him the map, his decision to follow the route, the indication on-screen of the journey, his stopping, finding Claire? The possibilities for a happy ending – what would his future be?
13.A portrait of an American family, functional and dysfunctional? The world of business and its pressures? Coping with the pressures of modern life?
