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# Little to Crowe about: Director’s latest effort suffers by comparison
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/little-to-crowe-about-directors-latest-effort-suffers-by-comparison/
- Published: 2005-10-14T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:58:01.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

A few years ago, Cameron Crowe was on tour with his rocker wife Nancy Wilson of Heart when he became enchanted by the “electric blue hillsides” and “in-betweeness” of Kentucky and decided to set his next film there. In it, cinematographer John Toll does a fine job conjuring the bucolic splendor of the Bluegrass State, but Crowe’s story exists somewhere else — somewhere very close to “Garden State.” There are many similarities between “Elizabethtown” and Zach Braff’s recent hit — the plight of the spiritually indigent, Gen-Y male leads, the miraculous rejuvenative powers of their nymphal love interests, roots-rock soundtracks — but Crowe’s film, while fitfully sweet and humorous, is manifestly contrived. There’s a difference between trying to direct an audience to feel something, and allowing it to happen organically. Several scenes in this movie were clearly designed to drain our tear ducts, but they hardly succeed because Crowe neglected to fill ‘em up first with genuine empathy.

Like Jerry Maguire did before him, hotshot Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) suffers a precipitous fall from the top of the career ladder when his futuristic sneaker design flops so badly that his boss (a very effective Alec Baldwin) concedes it “may cause an entire generation to return to bare feet.”

Having lost the company $1 billion, a suddenly unemployed Drew is about to do himself in when he gets a call from his sister (Judy Greer) with news his father has died. The film’s most improbable plot point has Hollie Baylor (Susan Sarandon) going on a hobby-binge in the immediate aftermath of her hubby’s demise, so a reluctant Drew is dispatched to the film’s titular town to handle funeral arrangements.

On an empty red-eye flight, Drew makes nice with Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst), an inordinately upbeat and kooky flight attendant who discerns a mesmeric quality in him that might not be so readily apparent to others, save the “Teen Beat” set. Drew is, quite frankly, a bit of a bore, and both Bloom and Crowe are to blame. Dunst, on the other hand, exudes oodles of charisma while wooing her lost boy in a lovely performance that in many ways redeems “Elizabethtown.”

It’s important to note that this is not a bad motion picture, it’s just not a great one — certainly not on the level of what we’ve come to expect from Crowe.

(Rated PG-13 for language and some sexual references. Running time: 123 minutes)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 14, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/101405.pdf?ref=smdp.com)