Elizabethtown (2005)

Elizabethtown: Directed by Cameron Crowe. With Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin. During a hometown memorial for his Kentucky-born father, a young man begins an unexpected romance with a too-good-to-be-true stewardess.

“I donu0026#39;t know. It seems to me that Americans have lost their taste for u0026quot;smallu0026quot; films – films that emphasize character, rather than explosions and movement. You get the same sort of comments with movies like Tim Burtonu0026#39;s wonderful Big Fish or Spielbergu0026#39;s Terminal. I will admit that the Dunst character is a cliché, but this movie is really about the extras, the characters that step out of the background, have their moment, and step back again. Paula Dean stands out as a woman to whom family — *all* her family — is all-important and who keeps it together with food and photographs. Iu0026#39;m not from Kentucky or the South, although Iu0026#39;ve lived South for a number of years. Iu0026#39;m not that interested in *my* extended family — and in that respect Iu0026#39;m far closer to the Bloom character than to the Dean character. But I recognize that this film is a great portrait of a certain kind of family life. Also, the dead father becomes a very well-rounded character indeed, as you think about the contradictions of his life. This is a film that expects the audience to do a little work, and it pays very well for that work.”