Film Review
‘Elizabethtown’: Average Town,
Average Chick Flick

 By Emily Sanders (November 19, 2005)

With talented actors and funny previews, “Elizabethtown” seemed like a film to look forward to seeing. I was surprisingly disappointed. The movie was too long and the plot lacked substance. The cast had a couple of good actors, but the plot was weakened because of so many subplots. The absence of on-screen chemistry between characters brought down the film’s validity.

As it was advertised, this movie seemed to have a nice romantic aspect to it; however, the relationship that blooms is very “chick-flicky” although very cute.         

The movie circles around the internal turmoil and growth of a young man from Oregon. Orlando Bloom’s character is a shoe designer whose “genius” design (the Spasmotica) has completely bombed. He finds out that it’s costing his company nearly one billion dollars and is immediately fired. In the midst of trying to kill himself, he gets a call that his dad has died. His devastated sister begs him to fly out to Kentucky to retrieve his dad and bring him home. This depressing opening seems to lag with no sign of being uplifted.

On his way to his father’s hometown, he meets an outgoing flight attendant named Claire (Kristen Dunst).  There is a fine line between perky and annoying; but Dunst’s character crosses it and doesn’t look back. She comes off as nice, but too nice and in an obsessive way. She verges on irritating.

The two wind up having a phone relationship for a while, and over time that evolves. It’s quite predictable. There are about five different plots going on at once. There are many intertwined relationships through the story. The plot seems to have the main idea and theme switch every 20 minutes.

“Elizabethtown” is a nice movie with good ideas and a cute romance and the theme of one man’s growth and acceptance carries through, but at almost three hours it is a bit long. Overall, it’s a chick-flick that I would not highly recommend.