In Defense Of ‘Elizabethtown’

Let’s just get this out of the way: do not @ me about this. I know a lot of you hate this movie, some of you even think it’s the worst movie ever made, but I’m not here to talk to you about it. If you truly believe that Elizabethtown is a worse mid-2000s transgression than From Justin to Kelly, there’s no saving you. This is for the people who dumped the DVD back on the Blockbuster shelf because their friends were talking shit, and for the Orlando Bloom fans who blush when people ask why he’s never done a rom-com, or all the girls in red hats who have tucked their beanies away when reminded of the film’s Rotten Tomatoes Score. I’m not here to prove to you that Elizabethtown is a cinematic masterpiece. Today is Cameron Crowe‘s birthday, and it’s time we cut the 60-year-old director a little slack for his 2005 rom-dramedy.

If we’re starting from the beginning, yes, the premise is a little silly. Bloom stars as Drew Baylor, a designer for a shoe company experiencing a massive fall from grace due to one flaw in his latest endeavor (that will cost the company $972 million to correct, which seems like a totally absurd number). In the process of his firing, he’s shamed by his boss (played by a delightfully dickish Alec Baldwin), given pity-eyes by his detached ex-girlfriend Ellen (Jessica Biel), and driven to a suicide that involves taping a kitchen knife to a stationary bike (yes, okay, it’s a little ridiculous). His death agenda comes to a screeching halt, however, when he receives a call from distraught sister Heather (your favorite rom-com BFF Judy Greer), who tells him that their father passed away while visiting family in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Their mother, Hollie (a supremely good Susan Sarandon), refuses to go, later revealing a turbulent history with her husband’s family, so naturally, Drew is enlisted to go retrieve the body. This is where our story really begins.

What ensues is not perfect; yes, Kirsten Dunst‘s unrealistically idyllic flight attendant Claire is occasionally grating as hell (but can we please eliminate “manic pixie dream girl” from our film criticism vocabulary?), some plot lines are left in the dust, it is, as Roger Ebert so aptly described, an “unrelenting Meet Cute“, and yes, a lot of the flick is extremely cheesy. But, as with every film, Elizabethtown‘s flaws should not negate its moments of strength. The romance aspect of Elizabethtown is not how it should be remembered; forget the red hat, the insistence of Claire that Drew forget his depressive thoughts and fall in love with her, the ‘city-slicker meets redneck family members and learns to live again’ trope. Instead, I implore you to watch this film through a lens overwhelmed by grief.

It’s no secret that losing someone close to you is a vastly different experience for every human being. When I was first showed Elizabethtown by a friend in high school (who had dubbed it her favorite film, even sporting her own red hat), I was a deeply insecure kid, so the notion that you shouldn’t be anyone’s “substitute person” – that everyone very much deserves to be someone’s first choice – was revelatory to me, and wound up assisting me on the terrifying road of dating (and self confidence) ahead. More than soul-crushing insecurities or trivial boy troubles, however, I was still very much grieving the loss of both of my grandfathers, two men who’d impacted me deeply during my most formative years and always stayed close, no matter how far away they lived. I’d lost them three years apart on the same December day, and as a young teenager, even many months after their deaths, I was struggling in my attempt to navigate the murky waters that come with acknowledging a permanent absence in one’s life. I hadn’t even been able to attend one of their memorial services due to my own father’s slow recovery from a long-term, nearly fatal illness, a sad fact that remains a sore subject. But let’s get back to the movie.

The first thing that struck me in Elizabethtown – completely bowled me over, more like – was the dream of childhood memories and his father that Drew has on the flight to Kentucky. There’s nothing grandiose about it; little Drew tries on his dad’s shoes, Dad buckles him into the front seat of a car, packs up boxes with him, dances and spins around an empty room. It quickly segues into flashbacks of Drew’s job “fiasco”, but that part is irrelevant for me. It’s the depiction of these little moments – the too-big shoes, the front-seat car ride, the packing and spinning – that hit me like a ton of bricks. So few stories take the time to chronicle the beauty of mundanity, the value of these small memories, the truth that somehow these are the kinds of images that overwhelm you once someone’s gone. The faint echoes of his father’s voice drive it home, managing to characterize the devastating realization that someday, you’ll likely forget what your loved one’s voice sounded like (a sentiment beautifully explored here).

There are many moments sprinkled throughout the film (particularly in its third act) that depict grief and tumultuous family relations in a way that is rarely done right; Drew’s second thoughts about cremation and his constant bombarding of condolences and conflicting opinions from relatives, Hollie’s surprising stand-up tribute to her late husband and the emotional “Moon River” tap dance that follows, played with an extraordinary depth of both humor and vulnerability by Sarandon as she finally receives love from the family she so desperately sought it from while her husband was alive, and the “Free Bird“-sparked memorial service fire that perfectly captures the begrudgingly funny chaos of attempting to orchestrate a serious family event without a hitch.

Contrary to what you might expect, Elizabethtown is not a non-stop, doom-and-gloom pity party. It understands that there’s a complicated, dark humor in the grieving process, in the overwhelmingly confusing aftermath of death that there’s no one right way to navigate. No matter how many self-help books you buy or motivational videos you watch, there is no real handbook for loss, and this is a film that embraces this notion head-on.

As a nice little 60th birthday present to Mr. Crowe, I think it’s about time we cut this movie some slack. It’s flawed in many ways, but it does gift us with an honest exploration of grief, a memorable soundtrack, and a handful of beautiful performances. Elizabethtown boldly tosses any “color-by-numbers” process for grief to the wind, and instead, does what it knows how to do; it captures the imperfect, specific nature of the human experience in the face of life’s saddest occasions. Crowe may not nail the traditional (or largely palatable) love story with this one, but with Elizabethtown, he portrays the bumps and bruises we sustain on life’s pothole plagued roads in a way that few films do.

Where to Stream Elizabethtown