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So this is how I described the experience
that was Cameron Crowe’s newest film to my buddy Jason: “It’s
not a good movie, but it’s a great film.”
If that makes any kind of sense to you,
don’t read on. We’re obviously on the same wavelength and you
too will go see this movie, laugh and cry both appropriately and
inappropriately, fall in love with Kirsten Dunst’s Claire,
despite your version of my buddy Jason’s saying that she’s the
kind of girl that would end up making you miserable, even though
you know he’s right, but enjoy the idea of one day being made
miserable so that you can rue it later and somehow, someway, be
better off for the pain.
If not, read on, and then go see it and
feel the same way regardless. |
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Elizabethtown is a beautiful movie of
loss and regret, of failure and regret and of looking back
with no regrets, whenever possible. It’s a fun, romantic
comedy that deals deeply in death and suicide and still
manages to be charming and at times morbidly depressing in a
way that really, completely works.
The film revolves around the death of
Drew(Orlando Bloom)’s father and his subsequent handling of
all family affairs “because he’s the oldest” whilst dealing
with a major (one billion dollar) business failure he’s just
incurred and the fact that he’s completely lost touch with
the man that was his father. He refers to him, accidentally
as Mitch, rather than Dad at one point, and doesn’t know
why.
On the plane, after his aborted suicide
attempt (half-hearted but well-intentioned) he meets Claire,
the bubbly flight attendant with something else going on
behind her eyes, a student of names and a really fun person.
Story ensues, but with more diversions,
change-ups, and digressions than you can imagine.
The fact is that the flick does not
work as a movie. The plot meanders and frankly puts you TOO
much in the place where you are, rather than giving you the
soundbites of experience, that movies are supposed to do.
When the memorial to Dad happens, you really are there,
good, bad and ugly, there for the whole wonderful, painful,
beautiful Susan Sarandon tap dance, there for all the
commentary, barely suppressed family drama, there for all
the shit, shine and reality that exists, and this does not
make for good entertainment. But damn, is it real.
And the film doesn’t end. It keeps
trying to end, but like any other tribute to reality, there
is no real end, even after the credits, even after the
fourth time you thought it was going to end, it doesn’t and
reality trudges on, for good, bad or indifferent. On the
whole, the film is more of a pleasant, joyful, even
enlightening ordeal than it is a movie, and I love it for
that. Despite the film’s one major fault, a complete and
utter miscarriage in getting the audience to know the father
as Drew does, the film carries you along and doesn’t let you
forget the importance of your own father, terrify you of a
life without him and yet reassure you that he’s prepared you
for just that. The film is real, is not an escape despite
the possibly doomed beautiful romance, and keeps you present
in what it is to be human, alive and susceptible and it is
wonderful.
Kudos to Kirsten Dunst and Orlando
Bloom for pulling off adult, character heavy lead roles and
to Cameron Crowe for writing his “Candle in the Wind” for
his father, James Crowe.
Screw the critics, revel in your love
song, and keep feeling for all of us. This isn’t your best
movie, Cameron, but damn does it work |
