ELIZABETHTOWN review

In the last month I have only seen one new or current film coming to theaters soon. ELIZABETHTOWN. I saw it while I was briefly in Los Angeles while in the middle of my cross-country travels following the Alamo Drafthouse’s truck from one Austin to Austin with only 7000 miles between the start and stop.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am making a film at Paramount (JOHN CARTER OF MARS) and I do have a friendly relationship with the director of this film, Cameron Crowe. So feel free to completely discount anything I may have to say about this film, under the auspices of being “compromised” or whatever you feel like claiming about me.

I could easily just not write about this film. Nobody has “asked” me to write about it, nor have I even been “encouraged” to write about it, by anyone other than my father – and a few emails from readers asking me to please write about modern films again.

For the past 3 months or so, Cameron has been trying to set up a screening for me to see ELIZABETHTOWN… mainly due to the fact that I loved his script, when I reviewed it for the site all those moons ago and he was genuinely curious to see what I thought of the finished film. Originally he was planning to come to Austin to do a screening here with AICN – but schedules and timing got all askew and that didn’t work out. Then early in the summer I was going to be in L.A. and then that didn’t happen, so it got all askew again.

When I saw that I’d be hitting L.A. for a couple of days around the REPO MAN screening, I thought I’d take advantage of the chance to finally see ELIZABETHTOWN – one of my most anticipated films of 2005. Once I got the screening set up, Moriarty began begging me to let him see the film too. After forcing him to sign over the future recording rights of Toshiro Lucas, I consented to let him come see the film.

Father Geek, KublaKhan and I got lost trying to find the screening room and when I called Moriarty for help navigating Los Angeles – he promptly directed us into the heart of South Central Los Angeles where we fit in like me in a bikini. As soon as we figured out that when Moriarty said South he meant North and when he said right he meant left – we managed to find ourselves to the screening about 10 minutes late – and I absolutely detest being late to anything, it’s just rude.

When we got to the screening room, who should be there, but Cameron himself. Now, folks… I have to confess something here. I’ve had the great fortune of having spent hours on the phone to Mr. Crowe talking idly about music, film, politics and history. And upon finally meeting him, I tried be as nonchalant as possible – but… big heaps of adoration for this man and his work lay just beneath the surface of my skin. From FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH to the films he’s directed like SAY ANYTHING to SINGLES to JERRY MAGUIRE to ALMOST FAMOUS and to VANILLA SKY… he’s been a filmmaker that had his pulse on my perception of passion and love. He isn’t one for subtle gradual descents into mad love, but rather sudden abrupt sensations of over-whelming want and desire. He isn’t for everyone. There are sad sacks out there that can’t take seven servings of emotional overload, but I can. And it seems most of the folks I know are the same way.

They love big demonstrations of love. They love a movie that makes them groan out of a desire for someone to say that to them. That makes them want to stare blissfully into another’s eyes and say the sappiest dialogue you could think of. And for those of you out there in love, listen to what you say to the one you love – and imagine watching it on screen. Especially young love. Cameron gets the silly impractical whimsy of it.

It has been a long time since Cameron had a successful love story. That isn’t to say, he hasn’t made successful films that wrap you up in love, only to say that the characters within those films… haven’t necessarily been successful in love. ALMOST FAMOUS is very much about the one that got away, while VANILLA SKY is all about how love can destroy even the most successful amongst us. Here, here Cameron is exploring how when we are empty people at the ledge of the abyss, that love can fill us all the way back up… and make us live as we have never lived before.

That’s a big theme.

That when the world shits on you, your girlfriend betrays you, your career collapses and your father dies… that something as simply complex as an amazing woman could come along and refuse to let you slide down into the hell of self-loathing and self-destruction… but would rather lift you up and show you a world that you thought was gone to you. That you felt would never be there for you. And that makes you look at that spot you once considered the highest you’d ever be, and make you see it for the valley of your life, because only with this new love could you see the world as it really is.

Now, I’m a drunk fool in love. I love to be smacked up side the face and coo about how great I feel and how wonderful love is. I’m also one of those types that pangs for love when it isn’t there. That can see the drab grays of the brightest sunset when there isn’t a cheek to rest mine against to see those beautiful dying hues of the day with.

But – ELIZABETHTOWN is about more than even just that big theme of love filling your world. It’s also about slowing down to appreciate the world around you. It’s about appreciating the simple things in life. It’s about hitting the road to see this beautiful place you live in, instead of rushing to fly over it all. It’s about point A to point Z and hitting all the vowels and consonants in-between. It’s about trying to get more out of life than a position or a place of notoriety. It’s about seeing beauty in a washed up cousin’s band or the wonder of getting that screaming kid to appreciate the wonder of explosions. It’s about coffins vs. urns, it’s about the mortality of your parents and taking that road trip that dad wants to go on this year, instead of next. It’s about endless celphone conversations where you have to plug in the charger because you’ve talked so long the battery is running out – and about getting up pre-dawn to meet this fabulous woman for a look at the sun rising.

It’s about weird stops at Dinosaur World or the Hotel where MLKjr was killed. It’s about moving on when the worst happens… and finding a new world of options and chances.

As you can probably gather, I love this movie. I love it because in watching the film, I found I really did love Orlando Bloom as an actor without a sword and a cape. This is a film that has Orlando slow down and be a human being. Not an Elf. Not the all-powerful Blacksmith. Instead, he’s just a guy that’s never slowed down to appreciate much of anything in life. Whose cel phone has never not not ringed. He’s got a great expressive face in this film, he wears weary well. He seems a wisp of a man here, worn out too soon. He’s great in the film.

But even greater is Kirsten Dunst. To me, her Claire Colburn is my female Lloyd Dobler. She’s that sort of woman that’s just so utterly fantastically fabulous and awesome that she recognizes that though you are a silly man with a “poor pitiful me” myopic view of the world, that she sees that you’re not poor or pitiful or even completely pathetic. She’s the sort of gal that recognizes that you’re not ready to move on to the next relationship, that you’re so caught up with what’s happened to you, and where you are that you can’t even imagine a “we” anytime in your future, so she does what has to be done to get you to a point where you can’t imagine being a “me” or an “I” but desperately needs to be a “we”. And I’m not really sure if that makes 2 licks of a bit of sense… but the map she gives Orlando’s Drew… And the road trip part of this movie – it’s totally and impractibly unreal.

It’s a bit of magic – a great what if. Nobody anywhere could construct the map she makes for Drew. It’s fantasy. In 2 days – she made a multi-day moment by moment map accompanied by music, side trips and spectacles? This isn’t reality – this is the love drunk world of cinematic two fisted chest thumping love. Where the impossible is a montage away. And I loved it.

The only part of the film that felt a bit wrong for me, was the big Susan Sarandon stage moment – but ya know – the more I’ve thought on it, the more it made sense. You see – when her husband died – she went crazy knowing she’d have to see all these relatives and people that she never felt a part of – and she wanted to show them, one last time why she was the fabulous creature that took their “Mitch” away. She needed them to all be in awe of who and what she was. She needed them to accept and love her. Because all these crazy relatives… that’s all the “Mitch” she had left. And she wasn’t ready to let go.

Now, it could be argued that this scene could be cut, as it isn’t directly key to Drew’s story, but I would disagree. Because it is in this scene that you realize what an amazing woman his father married and how impractically over the top her love for him was. That made him realize that that was what was missing in his life, only it wasn’t missing. It was Claire.

Sure – I saw this movie in the middle of a road trip of discovery. Sure, just a week before I went back to the little town that I haven’t been back to in 15 years and had an amazing emotional recovery over what had transpired there all those years ago. And sure, I’ve been stopping at road stop Americana’s all over the great American West. And absolutely, I’ve done this trip with my Father and my Nephew and I’m wrapped up with family. And sure, the trip meant a slowdown of phone calls and emails, and absolutely I’m gaga over a gal right now. And yes, I’m goofy in love with life and not a cynical prick picking at a film about all of this and more. But I’ll say this, I love this movie, because to me, it’s exactly what I want and hope for every time I see “A Cameron Crowe Film”!