Movie Review - Elizabethtown

I bought this movie yesterday. Why buy it instead of renting it, especially with the dreadful reviews it got? Because it stars Orlando Bloom. I figured if it was a real turkey, we could always mute the sound and just enjoy the eye candy. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I know a lot of fans and critics alike didn't like this movie. While I agree that it's not Oscar material, I feel it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be.

Elizabethtown is a funny little look at life's ups and downs, successes and failures, and how we deal with them (or don't deal with them, whichever the case may be).

Drew (Orlando Bloom) has cost his employer close to One Billion Dollars. As a result, he's lost his job (in a great, flaming, public display), his girlfriend and his will to live. His attempted suicide is interrupted by a phone call from his sister. She bears the sad news that their father has passed away. Drew now has to put his planned death on hold to travel from Oregon to Kentucky to retrieve the body. Along the way, he meets up with the quirky, perpetually happy flight attendant named Claire (Kirsten Dunst).

While I admit that I'm not a huge Kirsten Dunst fan (she annoys me, actually), I have to say that there are few actresses who could have pulled off this flighty, slightly eccentric role the way she did. Orlando Bloom did an admirable job of adopting an American accent, and his emotion (which was especially important in the road trip scenes) came though loud and clear. Susan Sarandon was her usual, lovely, talented self. She portrayed Drew's mother.

The plot moves quite slowly throughout the film, but that's ok. It's supposed to be a slow, meandering tale, just like life itself in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The movie was never intended to be a blockbuster, a mile-a-minute action flick, or a torrid love story. It's thoughtful, sweet, poignent, with a great soundtrack and plenty of belly laugh moments (especially for those of us who can identify with a large, disfunctional family).

I highly recommend this movie for anyone who is looking for something quiet and mellow to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It's rated PG, so you can watch it while the kids are playing in the next room, and you don't have to worry about what scenes they might walk in on. On a scale of 1 to 10 (one being a total bomb, 10 being the most fantastic thing I've seen in years), I'd give this movie a 7 1/2.