The story within Elizabethtown centers on the once successful sport shoe designer Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) learning the lesson of supreme failure.  Drew’s efforts to create the ultimate footwear have backfired, as almost every single pair returns to the manufacturer.  It is an expensive fiasco, as it will cost the company a total of 972 million dollars and tarnish the company name.  Without anyone to lean on, Drew withdraws and begins to plan his next fatally dark move.  However, Drew’s sister played by Judy Greer interrupts him with the tragic news of his father’s unexpected departure.  Being the responsible person of the family, Drew suspends his suicidal plans and travels from Oregon to the rustic Kentucky town Elizabethtown to take care of the funeral engagements.

On the empty night flight across America, Drew encounters the pushy flight attendant Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst).  Instead of allowing Drew to sleep she initiates conversation with him while Drew kindly keeps listening to her.  She even provides a map for him to find his way to Elizabethtown.  So far, the film kept me intrigued and left several lasting notions for continued contemplation, but as the story unfolds more ideas emerge.  An overwhelming flood of constantly new concepts and thoughts enter the silver screen, which relentlessly attempts to tip the viewer over the edge of what one can handle.  Within this chaotic mesh of thoughts, emotions, ideas, and actions the film provides a genuine concept of devastating confusion, as the emotional disoriented Drew seeks to find his lost relation to his father.

The film provides concepts such as marriage, death, joy, parenting, music, driving, listening, traveling, love, cremation, and much more.  What is interesting is how Crowe presents each idea, as some of them emerge subtly while force-feeding would give justice to how other notions are illustrated.  Yet, Crowe keeps it genuine, as Drew struggles to find a meaning between him and his dad while also reflecting over his own place in the world, as the refreshing Claire wants to turn his life upside down in a cheerfully bubbly manner. In some aspects, the film resembles Garden State (2004) while delicately incorporating the philosophical existentialism of both Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004).  However, Crowe does not succeed in elevating the film to the same level of his previous film, or that of others.  Instead, this remarkably clever story succeeds in loosing itself into the clichéd while appearing like a plate of mish-mashed spaghetti even though it will entertain and give room for thought, and in the end, it will just be like the Jelly Beans’ simple construct.

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USA

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