Elizabethtown:

Recess' heart gets broken by this early Oscar-season letdown

In the past, Cameron Crowe has proved that sentimental can be good. In Almost Famous, he reminisces about his days at Rolling Stone without becoming overly nostalgic; and, like the movie or not, Cameron Diaz may have actually been, "The saddest [and craziest] girl to ever hold a martini," in Vanilla Sky. Unfortunately, in his latest film, Elizabethtown, Crowe falls victim to his own wide-eyed creativity.

Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is the once-promising designer of a sneaker poised to lose a bundle for his Nike-like company. Stuck in a swath of self-pity, he attempts suicide, only to be forestalled by his father's unexpected demise and a trip to small-town Kentucky to pick up his remains. As the soundtrack swells (as it does, intrusively so, throughout the film), Drew deals with the demands of his quintessentially "Southern" family and the flighty whims of a stewardess, Claire (Kirsten Dunst).

Although running just two hours, Elizabethtown feels interminable. Perhaps this is because every character is given a moment in the spotlight. For example, the film forgets about Drew's mother Holly Baylor (Susan Sarandon) until a jarringly incongruous tap dance number near the end. Same goes for Alec Baldwin as Drew's boss and Jessica Biel as the ex-girlfriend. Or, perhaps the film feels never-ending because it never figures out what it is in the first place. It is at once a "fish-out-of-water" tale (between Drew and his relatives), a love story (between Drew and Claire) and a road trip film (in the final 20 minutes Drew "discovers America" by car).

Typically, Crowe has the uncanny ability to craft one-liners that come across as emotional, not sappy. Jerry Maguire's "You had me at hello," is a prime example. However, in Elizabethtown when the bubbly Claire bitterly asserts, "I'm impossible to forget but hard to remember," the words seem hollow. In fact, the entire film is devoid of true emotion. While some of the blame falls to Crowe, Bloom is primarily at fault. So long the idol of pre-pubescent girls, Bloom seems to have concluded that innocuous good looks are an adequate substitute for actual acting. In Elizabethtown, he spends most of the time passively waiting for others to do so and, as such, fails to provide the film with the emotional center it needs.

Elizabethtown is overbearing, overwrought, overly sentimental and underacted; and, frankly, I'm over it.