Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another review of Cameron Crowe's ELIZABETHTOWN. That bastard Harry steps foot in LA and gets to see the fuckin' thing and Moriarty got to see it, too. That's fine, I was just sitting here in Austin licking the cat's ass. Grumble-Grumble... At least Moriarty's in-person review gave me the a hope that the film will be all that I was looking for, especially after reading those iffy early test screening reviews. Now we have another review to add onto the positives stack. I can't wait for this one!
I just got back from a screening of Cameron Crowe's new film ELIZABETHTOWN at my local theatre and figured I'd send in my thoughts on the movie. First off, as a warning, I love Crowe's films. I went into this movie expecting a lot, not just from Crowe, but from Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst as well. Orlando has, to this point, not impressed me very much, and this was sort of his last chance to make up for it.
We got to the theatre almost 2 hours early to get good seats. The announcement was made that the movie is still a work in progress, that there may be technical flaws in the film (which I saw very few of) and they wanted us to stay after to answer some questions. Standard test screening babble.
So, the bottom line... This is quite likely my favorite movie of the year. If it's not my favorite, it's certainly in my top 5.
The story, if you're not familiar with it, goes something like this: Innovative hot shot new shoe designer (yes, shoe designer) Drew Baylor has created a hugely anticipated shoe, the Spasmodica, which utterly tanks. The shoe is a failure. It's costing Baylor's employer, Mercury, a lot of money. A LOT of money. He'll never work in the industry again.
What follows is the single funniest suicide scene I have EVER seen. But, before he can do the dirty deed, he receives word that his father has died. Time to head off to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where his father was visiting at the time of his passing, to make arrangements for the funeral and such. What follows is pretty standard fare - he meets a talkative flight attendant, played by Kirsten Dunst, and the story continues from there.
Okay, so what was good? The music, first of all. There's music all over in this film and it's great. I thought the performances were awesome as well, but I'm certain there will be plenty of people who argue this with me, so let me try to explain. Most of this movie was exaggerated. The characters were almost cartoony at times. But that's the wonderful thing about movies - you don't need to represent reality with a perfectly objective view. We watch this movie through the lens of Drew Baylor's mind. He's hurting, weak, and simply overwhelmed by the world. Everything is surreal, slightly odd. You get a real feel for how he's feeling. It was genuinely funny - there were times the audience was simply roaring with laughter, so it wasn't just me. But the movie had heart, too, and something to say. The central message was that failure and death can be catalysts to persevere and experience life in a new and better way. Sure, there is sadness, but we can take that and turn it around. We need those five minutes to wallow in misery, but after that, it's time to move on.
I think the biggest flaw this film has is its lack of focus. It can seem rather scatter-brained at times, quickly jumping between different threads in the story. There are a lot of secondary characters that get good screen time - and they are very important to the film - but it runs around 2 hours and 20 minutes long. I personally wouldn't cut more than 2 or 3 minutes of it (some parts right when he arrives in Elizabethtown), but your average moviegoing audience doesn't have that kind of patience. The movie isn't targetted at the artsy crowd either, but the inclusion of Orlando Bloom should make that obvious. I can see this movie not doing well simply because the target audience - teenagers and twentysomethings - are on average not well enough acquainted with the world to understand the film. And yes, that really is the worst I can say about this movie.
If you use this, call me Horselover Fat.
