At one point in "Elizabethtown" the two leads (played by O. Bloom and K. Dunst) have what may be the longest phone conversation in the history of cinema (I'm surprised their batteries never ran down) during which they discuss who's the "they" in "They say that..." This made for a pretty funny one-panel "Far Side" cartoon some years back but here it's typical of dialogue that makes a point then goes on way past that. Writer/director C. Crowe seems to be poaching on R. Altman territory ("Nashville" et al.) trying for a kind of interweaving of characters and subplots letting the viewer feel constantly like the "fly on the wall" eavesdropping. But Altman always had a coldly judicious view of how compelling his characters were and how much to let us see of their lives. Crowe seems to expect we'll see all these Kentuckians as "kinfolk" because his protagonist has to.
My problem with the movie began with the premise: Bloom is a designer of an athletic shoe that apparently nobody wants, thus costing his company tons of money. Do major business enterprises really plunge down such suicidal blind alleys, I mean outside "The Simpsons"? Don't they have safeguards and contingency plans and whatnot? Anyway Bloom gets fired and decides to kill himself (as Norman Bates put it, "that seems rather an extreme reaction") concocting an exercise/killing-machine that the people behind "Saw" must envy. Before he can carry it out, his sister calls informing him their father has died and he must drop whatever he's doing to take care of it. (Phone-interrupted suicide has also been done before, e.g. "Way of the Gun.") It's too bad we don't see more of the sister, a "passive-aggressive" poster child; Judy Greer gives far and away the film's best performance. On the flight to Kentucky Bloom meets a "stalker" stewardess (sorry, "flight attendant") (Dunst) who WILL NOT leave him alone (providing the best comedic moments) and who had me hoping this flick maybe would become a new loopy twist on "Fatal Attraction." Only later did I grasp that Dunst is supposed to be the kind of cinematic pixielike "free spirit" who "opens our eyes to the possibilities of" yadda yadda yadda.
Don't get me wrong, I could point out any number of enjoyable moments between Bloom's arrival in E-town and his road trip back home--in fact, here are two: the hyper little kid barfing on D-Day from "Animal House" and Susan Sarandon's tap dance to "Moon River," her giddiest hoofing since "Rocky Horror Picture Show"---but they're just a collection of moments, they don't develop any narrative momentum (in fact they could be shown in reverse order with the same effect) or compound our emotional engagement (or at least mine). They depend totally on the charm of the actors to carry it off; other than Sarandon (who's not on-screen nearly enough) a little of all these people went a long way for me. As for the trip back home itself--"fuhgeddaboutit," it's like a whole new movie (that had already seemed long to that point) with Bloom following an incredibly intricate set of instructions left for him by Dunst, including a tribute to M. L. King and a reference to the Oklahoma City bombing and a conclusion that I would have found stunningly implausible if my suspension of disbelief had not already long since collapsed.
As Denis Leary said in one role, "I'm Irish, maybe I'm thick." I don't know what Crowe's trying to say here--"Enjoy life"? "Don't kill yourself if you get fired"? "Make peace with your parents before they're dead"? Okay, thanks! I appreciate that the Kentuckians were not cartoonish rednecks although it seemed a stretch that having once been told that Bloom was from Oregon, they continued to refer to him as a Californian. "Well hell, they's both a fair piece out west from here, ain't they?..." "Elizabethtown" makes in passing one serious and valid point --"You can't be buddies with your son" --then negates it with the rock-drummer dad apparently successfully doing just that. Lord only knows how many feral children in public places have made me wish that current parents would look up "parent" in the dictionary. Guess we just need to let the kids see videos of buildings blowing up "real good" ....
My problem with the movie began with the premise: Bloom is a designer of an athletic shoe that apparently nobody wants, thus costing his company tons of money. Do major business enterprises really plunge down such suicidal blind alleys, I mean outside "The Simpsons"? Don't they have safeguards and contingency plans and whatnot? Anyway Bloom gets fired and decides to kill himself (as Norman Bates put it, "that seems rather an extreme reaction") concocting an exercise/killing-machine that the people behind "Saw" must envy. Before he can carry it out, his sister calls informing him their father has died and he must drop whatever he's doing to take care of it. (Phone-interrupted suicide has also been done before, e.g. "Way of the Gun.") It's too bad we don't see more of the sister, a "passive-aggressive" poster child; Judy Greer gives far and away the film's best performance. On the flight to Kentucky Bloom meets a "stalker" stewardess (sorry, "flight attendant") (Dunst) who WILL NOT leave him alone (providing the best comedic moments) and who had me hoping this flick maybe would become a new loopy twist on "Fatal Attraction." Only later did I grasp that Dunst is supposed to be the kind of cinematic pixielike "free spirit" who "opens our eyes to the possibilities of" yadda yadda yadda.
Don't get me wrong, I could point out any number of enjoyable moments between Bloom's arrival in E-town and his road trip back home--in fact, here are two: the hyper little kid barfing on D-Day from "Animal House" and Susan Sarandon's tap dance to "Moon River," her giddiest hoofing since "Rocky Horror Picture Show"---but they're just a collection of moments, they don't develop any narrative momentum (in fact they could be shown in reverse order with the same effect) or compound our emotional engagement (or at least mine). They depend totally on the charm of the actors to carry it off; other than Sarandon (who's not on-screen nearly enough) a little of all these people went a long way for me. As for the trip back home itself--"fuhgeddaboutit," it's like a whole new movie (that had already seemed long to that point) with Bloom following an incredibly intricate set of instructions left for him by Dunst, including a tribute to M. L. King and a reference to the Oklahoma City bombing and a conclusion that I would have found stunningly implausible if my suspension of disbelief had not already long since collapsed.
As Denis Leary said in one role, "I'm Irish, maybe I'm thick." I don't know what Crowe's trying to say here--"Enjoy life"? "Don't kill yourself if you get fired"? "Make peace with your parents before they're dead"? Okay, thanks! I appreciate that the Kentuckians were not cartoonish rednecks although it seemed a stretch that having once been told that Bloom was from Oregon, they continued to refer to him as a Californian. "Well hell, they's both a fair piece out west from here, ain't they?..." "Elizabethtown" makes in passing one serious and valid point --"You can't be buddies with your son" --then negates it with the rock-drummer dad apparently successfully doing just that. Lord only knows how many feral children in public places have made me wish that current parents would look up "parent" in the dictionary. Guess we just need to let the kids see videos of buildings blowing up "real good" ....