Back from the brink

Cameron Crowe's sixth movie as writer-director was cut after tepidly received screenings on the festival circuit. But not enough.

While it now has fewer of its original dank patches, it's still one of his weaker efforts. It has neither the darker tones nor the bittersweet, ironic sentiments of his best work.

Orlando Bloom plays a young and hitherto successful designer who has just lost his employer (Alec Baldwin) a heap of money with a revolutionary training shoe. He is deserted by his girl and suddenly has to go home to deal with his father's funeral in provincial Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

He is brought back from suicidal depression by two things. He falls in love with a persistent flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) on the journey home and he finally finds his centre with his long-lost eccentric but loving family.

Bloom's gentle charm, which manages to suggest both the desperation he feels and his surprise at finding that home is where the heart is, contrasts well with Dunst's much busier but sometimes irritating performance. And Baldwin once again proves that the longer he acts, the better he gets.

Crowe diffuses his central idea, which is how to survive a personal disaster, with acres of padding. The music, too, usually one of his strengths, is overlaid much too thickly. It is, in essence, a very slight film masquerading as something far deeper.

Elizabethtown
Cert: cert12A