2008 Woodie Awards
Elizabethtown? How About Orlando Bloomtown?
Jami Furo
Issue date: 10/21/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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This line opens "Elizabethtown," a heart-warming story of how a man's life is changed for the better after facing two major tragedies.
Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom, "Lord of the Rings", "Pirates of the Caribbean") is having a bad day. In his own words, he is experiencing the backlash of a "fiasco." The highly anticipated shoe that he designed for his sneaker company is a huge flop and his mistake has cost the company almost a billion dollars.
After losing his well-paying job, he finds out that his father passed away while visiting relatives in Elizabethtown, Ky. His mother (Susan Sarandon) and sister are hysterical with shock and grief, and it is up to Drew to take care of the arrangements. He flies to Elizabethtown, consumed with depression and hopelessness.
Right when his plane takes everything, everything starts to change. He meets Claire (Kirsten Dunst, "Spiderman"), a stewardess on the flight of which he is the only passenger. She is friendly and spontaneous and seems to keep appearing throughout his stay in Elizabethtown.
"Elizabethtown" is about the surreal found in the real. It is the extraordinary within the ordinary. It is death and life and the way that a father's death inspires a sort of rebirth for his son. It is a funny yet poignant, sad but uplifting film that after it's over will make you want to go out of the theater and embrace life. It is full of wise one-liners that force you to think about them and forbid you from forgetting them long after the last credit has rolled.
Bloom gives his finest performance of his career. He captures the desperation of a man with nothing to lose and he embraces the hope of a man with everything to gain. Bloom gives an impressive nature to the role of an ordinary man. He makes the story of an everyday kind of guy in a nowhere town an epic journey of one man's quest to discover life in the world he thought he knew.
Dunst also delivers a superb performance. The talkative, spontaneous Claire, who suffers in the very depths of her soul without letting the world know, is like a muse for the troubled Drew. She is an instrument for bringing about change in him, and in the process, she experiences change in herself, too. Her facial expressions and delivery are perfect and show both sides of Claire's character beautifully without revealing too much of her innermost thoughts.
"Elizabethtown" is a must see. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will leave the theater thinking about life in a completely different way.