Elizabethtown (2005 Cameron Crowe & scr)

Opens particularly like a Wilder, with a suicide attempt (Sabrina), death of father (Avanti) and helpful girl in uniform (The Apartment). Orlando Bloom has to deal with the billion dollar failure of his shoe, the Spasmodica, and the burial of his father amidst a charming Kentuckian community. Film radiates warmth (how often can you say that about anything but a radiator?) and has plenty of good little one-liners if you listen out for them.

 

Kirsten Dunst is the helpful stewardess, Alec Baldwin (just signed up for Cameron's new film) is the boss, Susan Sarandon the mother. Cast seems to feature lots of non-professionals. Or maybe they're so professional they seem like non-professionals.

It's the way it moves, the momentum - and it's so funny at the same time - that always impresses me. This is the work of a fine filmic story-teller. The opening - we're right in the middle of a story here - with Bloom in the shit and the oft-repeated "I'm fine" (with a few judicious flashbacks, just enough to fill us in), the flight, getting lost, then arriving in the town where he's heavily anticipated, being thrust into this world of characters, people who loved his father, a life he knows nothing about, a long phone call, photos...

In one of my favourite touches, Orlando's hug with commiserating hotel neighbour causes the beer bottles they both have in their dressing gown pockets to clink:

 

Great lines like "I have this thing for you" (holding up a parcel) and "Trust me, everyone's less mysterious than they think they are" and "I'm impossible to forget and hard to remember".

And just when you think the film's all over, there's a long and most interesting car journey across America including Memphis, the Lorraine Motel (where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968), Oklahoma City National Memorial, Dinosaur World, the Beaver Bridge and Scottsbluff, Nebraska (route shown below), a journey Bloom enjoyed so much, he chose to then drive back to LA rather than fly.

The film was badly received and is perhaps why Cameron didn't make a film for six years, causing us quite a worry. We thought and still think it's bloody marvellous. It has the same fascination for photos and history as you'll find in Poliakoff's Shooting the Past.