Where Did Cameron Crowe Go Wrong?

In this ongoing franchise of career analyses, we’ve typically focused on A-list actors who were destined for legendary greatness in their respective fields, but have significantly faltered over the last decade (or in some cases, two). Never before have we felt compelled to break down the breakdown of an Academy award-winning director, but alas, Cameron Crowe‘s (already) universally despised Aloha is out today, begging the question: where did he go wrong?

Aloha — despite its A-list cast including Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Alec Baldwin, and Bill Murray — has seen a slew of disgruntled reviews, all with a common denominator of confusion. This film follows Brian Gilcrest (Cooper), a decorated military contractor who returns home to Hawaii to reconnect with his long-lost love, Tracy (McAdams). Things get complicated, however, when his socially awkward Air Force companion (Stone) catches his eye. More like Alo-nah, amirite?

Even the most devoted Crowe followers can’t be coaxed into seeing this mess, which makes it difficult for fans of his work to stay onboard. It only makes us wonder how this talented filmmaker screwed up so epically. How has no one close to him prevented this unravelling? It must be difficult to sit an Oscar-winning writer and director down and tell them that they’re screwing up their reputation as a filmmaker. To that point, it wasn’t always like this.

Almost Famous is an arguably perfect feel-good film. It’s smart, sentimental, supremely cast, and incredibly acted. Its soundtrack is the ideal mix of diegetic and non, making for several overtly emotional — but never too corny — iconic scenes. It went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture, and Crowe snagged the Academy award for Best Original Screenplay — a poetic feat considering the film is based on his time as a teenage contributor to Rolling Stone. Then again, nearly all of Crowe’s writing-directing endeavors are based on his life experiences.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High was written after Crowe published a book of the same name chronicling his days at San Diego’s Clairemont High School as undercover student Dave Cameron, hot off a fresh publishing contract with Simon & Schuster. Then came Say Anything…, followed by Singles, then perhaps his most famous film, Jerry Maguire. All three films share the same skeleton: man falls on hard times, man is “saved” by hopeful woman of his dreams, man doesn’t realize what he has, man and woman eventually get together after man succeeds professionally. Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, and Elizabethtown differ from Crowe’s go-to story arc, but are all variations of the same tale nonetheless.

The wholly predictable Elizabethtown certainly ostracized a few Crowe fans, but had he not made We Bought a Zoo after filming the relatively respected music docs The Union and Pearl Jam Twenty, we may have been willing to look the other way. We Bought a Zoo was, to put it mildly, a joke; it is, without a doubt, Crowe’s worst film. But it seems that torch has recently been passed on to Aloha, which has garnered several complaints of the director’s inability to get out of his own way.

It’s difficult to determine when exactly the downfall occurred — between life event X, Y, or Z. Being that Crowe’s films are often so closely related to his personal life, his rather publicized divorce form Heart singer Nancy Wilson could have something to with the vicious cycle of writer’s block. In addition to writing screenplays, Crowe directed music videos before marrying Wilson in the summer of 1986. Then, much like his male protagonists, his career took off after he met the woman of his dreams. It was three years later that his directorial debut, Say Anything…, made a star out of the young writer/director as much as it did its lead actor, John Cusack, who is eternally linked with the image of Lloyd Dobler standing below Diane Court’s bedroom window blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” through his boombox. (We Bought a Zoo hit theaters a year following Crowe and Wilson’s divorce.)

Now his latest, and perhaps career-ending, film is taking up space at a theater near you. As someone who owns a signed Almost Famous poster from the man himself, I’m crossing my fingers that Crowe gets out of this cyclical funk that has undoubtedly tarnished his rep as a beloved filmmaker. The director has a Showtime pilot titled Roadies on the horizon, featuring the respectable Christina Hendricks and Luke Wilson starring against Blue Collar Comedy Tour alum Ron White. True to its title, it follows a road crew as they tag along on a rock band’s cross-country tour. Sounds awfully self-referential already, no? We’ll have to wait and see.

More from this franchise:

What Happened to Halle Berry’s Career?
Where Adam Sandler Went Wrong: A Retrospective
Where Did Jim Carrey Go Wrong?
Is Miramax to Blame for Gwyneth Paltrow’s Career Collapse?
Where Did Johnny Depp Go Wrong?
Where Will Smith Went Wrong

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Photos: Everett Collection