Crowe’s latest film is darling – but fake

loading...

In theaters

ELIZABETHTOWN, written and directed by Cameron Crowe, 121 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Cameron Crowe movie, “Elizabethtown,” is a warm and fuzzy parable about failure and redemption, life and death, love won and love lost – and love hanging in the balance.

From Crowe’s own script, the movie is Hollywood all the way. It’s slick and well-produced, with a title that makes it sound precious and nostalgic because it is precious and nostalgic.

Here is a film so devoid of hard edges that even a pending suicide is treated as a gimmicky joke. Regardless of how tough life becomes for its main character, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) – a failed shoe designer whose bum sneakers cost his company nearly $1 billion in losses – it never feels particularly trying, not even when Drew endures the sort of public ridicule normally reserved for the ultra famous.

Instead, in Crowe’s dreamlike world of life lessons learned along this movie’s meandering path, real life is tucked neatly away so that the director can make room for the rather sizable suspension of disbelief audiences will need in order to enjoy the film.

The good news is that isn’t difficult to do.

After an amusingly tense lecture given to Drew by his icy boss (Alec Baldwin), who tells Drew that his screw-up is so big, it will affect the global community, Drew returns home prepared to kill himself. And then his cell phone rings. On the line is his sister, Heather (Judy Greer), with the sad news that their father has dropped dead in Elizabethtown, Ky., where he was visiting family, the likes of whom Drew only faintly knows.

According to Heather, their mother, Hollie (Susan Sarandon), is unable to handle the details, and neither can she. Would Drew take care of things? “You’re the oldest,” she says to him. “You need to do this.”

Drew does it, fully intending to tend to his father’s death so that he can then tend to his own. Since few commercial movies with a substantial budget would allow for that, he meets a potential love interest in Claire (Kirsten Dunst), a quirky flight attendant who might have been considered a stalker if she didn’t have such appealing insights into life that tend to get people like Drew back on the right path.

As with Crowe’s best and best-known movies, “Say Anything,” “Almost Famous” and “Jerry Maguire,” this is a soundtrack-driven film whose nostalgic songs give it more emotional weight than it likely would have had without their inclusion. The cast is strong, but the loose way the movie is assembled and the seriocomic tone Crowe strikes make parts of it feel incomplete, which is ironic since for Crowe, coming to a state of completion is the point of all his films. Will audiences leave “Elizabethtown” saying “He completes me” about Drew and his story? Doubtful. But they won’t have wasted their time, either.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

BEWITCHED, directed by Nora Ephron, written by Ephron and Delia Ephron, 100 minutes, rated PG-13.

Going into this high-concept bore from Nora Ephron, you at least expect a reasonably entertaining twist on the popular ’60s television show on which it’s based. What you get instead is a movie that feels as if it crawled out of “George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead.” Somehow, zombies got hold of this movie and laid their undead imaginations all over it. The film is awful, squandering a fine cast in Nicole Kidman, Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine with the sense that little beyond a passing effort went into its production.

It’s one of the worst sort of movies to cash in on our collective memories of a pop-culture favorite that never had the luxury of being bankrolled by a large budget. Instead, the television series became a hit because it had to rely on what matters – good writing, strong characters, solid chemistry.

The folks behind this movie have a different agenda. They’re betting that the hard work and creativity generated by people four decades ago will draw audiences to rent or buy the DVD today. It will, but not without a caveat. Negative word-of-mouth will sink this baby soon enough.

In the film, Will Ferrell is Jack Wyatt, a faded movie star who agrees to take the lead as Darren in a television remake of the series “Bewitched” so that he can rekindle his flagging career. Kidman is Isabel, a breathy witch who sports the same sort of nose twitch that favored Elizabeth Montgomery. That’s good enough for Jack, who hires her immediately. But when lonely Isabel mistakes his sudden fawning over her for the potential romance she craves, the ice is laid for self-deception and disappointment. Jack doesn’t care about her; he only cares about his career. And that’s something that sticks with this witch.

Those expecting fireworks can forget it – the film holds back. What we get instead is Kidman huffing and puffing through her frustration with Jack, stamping her feet and screwing up her face in a series of controlled temper tantrums, none of which is believable or funny.

Is this really what has become of Samantha? Has the sly feminism of the original series come down to the faux anger expressed in Kidman’s stamped foot? Please.

Why not give her some real anger? Why not turn Jack into a toad? Have the Ephrons really had it so easy in male-dominated Hollywood that they can’t transfer their own frustrations into a well of rage for Samantha to dip into?

Apparently so.

Grade: D

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the new archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

THE VIDEO-DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? BDN film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

The Adventures of Sharkboy & Lavagirl In 3-D – D-

Alexander – C

The Amityville Horror – C-

Arrested Development: The Complete Second Season – A-

A Very Long Engagement – A

The Aviator – A

Bad Education – A

Batman Anthology – A-

Batman Begins – A

Beauty Shop – C-

Bewitched – D

Bob Newhart: The Complete Second Season – A

Cinderella: Platinum Edition – A

Constantine – C-

Crash – D

Cursed – C-

Cypher – C+

Desperate Housewives: Complete First Season – B+

The Devil’s Rejects – B

A Dirty Shame – B

Empire Falls – C-

Fantastic Four – D

Fever Pitch – A-

Flight Of The Phoenix – C-

George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead – B

Guess Who – C+

Hammer Horror Series – A

Herbie: Fully Loaded – B-

Hide and Seek – C

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – B-

Hostage – C-

House of D – D

House of Flying Daggers – A

Inside Deep Throat – B+

Ice Princess – B-

The Interpreter – B+

Kicking and Screaming – C

Kingdom of Heaven – B-

Kung Fu Hustle – A

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – D+

The Longest Yard – C

A Lot Like Love – D

Martha Stewart’s Holiday Collection 2005 – B+

Million Dollar Baby – A

Monster-in-Law – B-

The Notebook – B+

Ray – A

The Ring Two – C-

Robots – C-

Sin City – A-

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – B

Upside of Anger – B

Unleashed – C-

The Wedding Date – B