During a hometown memorial for his Kentucky-born father, a young man begins an unexpected romance with a too-good-to-be-true stewardess.During a hometown memorial for his Kentucky-born father, a young man begins an unexpected romance with a too-good-to-be-true stewardess.During a hometown memorial for his Kentucky-born father, a young man begins an unexpected romance with a too-good-to-be-true stewardess.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 4 nominations
- Uncle Dale
- (as Loudon Wainwright)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis film was inspired by Cameron Crowe's visit to his own father's grave. It was his first trip to Kentucky since his father died 16 years earlier, and he found himself overwhelmed with emotion.
- GoofsWhile Drew is Driving into Elizabethtown and is waving to all the townsfolk you can see reflections in the windows of some buildings, The reflections are of the car that Drew is in and it is on a trailer with a camera attached to the bonnet.
- Quotes
Claire Colburn: So you failed. Alright you really failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You think I care about that? I do understand. You wanna be really great? Then have the courage to fail big and stick around. Make them wonder why you're still smiling.
- Crazy creditsThis film opens with the 1954 "VistaVision" Paramount Pictures logo - instead of the new 'live-action' one. This logo was used at the head of all Paramount films released from the mid-1950s through to 1986.
- ConnectionsEdited into Paula Goes to Hollywood (2005)
- SoundtracksJesus Was a Crossmaker
Written by Judee Sill
Arranged and Conducted by John Scott
Performed by The Hollies
Courtesy of EMI Records Ltd.
Under license from EMI Film & Television Music
"Elizabethtown" was not a roaring critical or commercial success for writer/director Cameron Crowe, but it is a charming, heartwarming film that looks and feels a lot like "Garden State," although, in this case, the young man is returning not to his own hometown but to the hometown of his dad. Crowe knows how to make romantic comedy look lightweight and easy. The characters and situations, though grounded in reality, always have a certain off-kilter quality of cockeyed optimism that keeps the movies from wallowing in clichés and that purges them of sentimentality. Drew's Kentucky relatives are not portrayed as hicks and rubes but rather as kind-hearted people who, though slightly suspicious of that branch of the family "from California" (actually they're from Oregon), welcome Drew into their midst with genuine affection and hospitality.
The romance between Drew and Claire, the flighty flight attendant, is developed with a great deal of emotion and charm. It is Claire's job as the life-affirming force in the scenario to articulate for Drew (and for us) what is and what is not important in life, and to see that creating a "fiasco" in the business world just doesn't rate as all that important when stacked up against truly important things like love, family and personal relationships. But, as always with Crowe, the message is never hammered home but filters through subtly, as he creates a thoughtful, lyrical poem through character and setting.
The movie hits a few wrong notes along the way, mainly in the scene at his father's memorial service, in which Drew's mom delivers a highly unlikely eulogy and receives a highly unlikely response from the audience. And the scene itself ends in a bit of desperate slapstick that is not up to the quality of the rest of the material. And even though Susan Sarandon is always delightful to watch, her character is fairly underdeveloped in this film and so she sometimes feels as if she is more of a tacked-on device than a genuine person in her own right. But all that is made up for by the wonderful performances of Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst in the lead roles - Bloom underplays beautifully, while Dunst emotes like crazy - and by Alec Baldwin in a wickedly witty cameo as Drew's boss, whose ability to reduce Drew to the mere shadow of a man while dripping with sarcasm and smiling through his clenched teeth is a priceless bit of satire aimed at the dehumanization that lies at the heart of the corporate world mentality.
Some viewers might feel cheated by the fact that Crowe reveals little about what kind of a relationship Drew had with his dad growing up. Drew is clearly not a bitter son, carrying deep-seated resentments around with him through adulthood, but neither does he seem overly affectionate towards the memory of his father or overwhelmed with grief at his passing. In many ways, Crowe holds back on revealing all this, as if to imply that revealing information of such an intimate nature to the audience would be something of a violation of that sacred bond that exists between a father and his son. Some artists would undoubtedly choose to go that route - letting the audience in on every sordid detail of the relationship - but Crowe is clearly an artist who feels we can learn just as much about Drew if the truth remains under the surface as we could if it were all out in the open. And in these days of hold-nothing-back, blab-it-all confessionals, that restraint is very much appreciated indeed.
- Buddy-51
- Dec 19, 2006
- How long is Elizabethtown?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $45,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $26,850,426
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,618,711
- Oct 16, 2005
- Gross worldwide
- $52,164,016
- Runtime2 hours 3 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1