Setting the stage, I write this blog as my darling Bella exclaims, “And by the way, it’s NOTHING like ‘Garden State’”.
Yes, this Cameron Crowe written/directed opus is long, unconventional, and dialog heavy, but Whitney and I both loved it, and any Kentuckian is sure to love it as well.
Nominally, “Elizabethtown” is the story of a wayward shoe designer (Orlando Bloom) who lost his benefactor corporation “roughly one billion dollars”. At the very moment he’s going to ginsu himself, he learns his father, favorite son of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, has died. His mom’s thrown into overdrive, his sister is a mess, and he–as oldest–must fly from Oregon to Kentucky to bring his corpse home. What follows is a non-conventional fish-out-of-water tale, shot in and around Central Kentucky, as our wayward designer finds life and love.
Critics complain the movie’s slow, predictable, but they miss the point: This movie is the flavor of Kentucky, the smoky flavor of people who understand the travails of life and our real (and insignificant) place in it.