Sweet Home Alabama Review
Posted by Jacob Ziegler on 10.14.2002
Reese Witherspoon is just too likable to ignore!
Sweet Home Alabama
Release Date: September 27th, 2002
Oftentimes I have been accused of just plain not liking a certain style of movie no matter what, such as the “chick-flick.” On the contrary, any movie, no matter how clichéd, no matter how predictable, no matter how sappy, can still be entertaining and good. It can still be a “chick-flick” as well. Such is the case with Hollywood’s latest sweetheart Reese Witherspoon’s latest movie, Sweet Home Alabama.
Witherspoon plays Melanie Carmichael, a New York fashion designer on the verge of making it big. When she moved to New York, she changed her last name and fabricated a past, because she was ashamed of her Alabama roots. Her boyfriend is Andrew Hennings (Patrick Dempsey, who looks stunningly like JFK Jr., and actually played JFK Sr. in a TV mini-series one time), the son of the mayor of New York, played by Candice Bergen (of TV’s Murphy Brown). One night, Andrew brings Melanie into a Tiffany and Co. shop, to pick out her own engagement ring. Yes, a man rich enough to afford that is also lame enough to think it was a good idea. Anyway, she of course says yes, but she wants to keep it under wraps for a few days (anyone who has seen the trailer will know why), but that plan is spoiled by Andrew’s mother, who exposes her engagement ring to the media. Andrew’s mother does not approve, but being in the public eye, she has to pretend she does. Melanie then decides she has to go home to personally tell her parents about the engagement, and take care of some other business as well. The other business, is of course, her husband whom she never was granted a divorce from, Jake (Josh Lucas from A Beautiful Mind).
Anyone who does not know how the movie will turn out from here, just stop reading the review. The purpose of a movie like Alabama is not to shock the viewers by showing them something revolutionary, but to tell a nice story; and this story is definitely told well. It progresses exactly as the audience would expect, as she confronts Jake, they fight and insult each other. She goes home to her country bumpkin parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), and she fights with them as well. A night in the bar results in her getting drunk, revealing old secrets, and pissing off nearly the entire town. It seems as though she can do no right, even though it is clear that by the end she will make everything right. Director Andy Tennant (Anna and the King, Ever After) paces the movie properly, alternating laughs and drama expertly.
A big strength of this flimsy (yet entertaining) script is the character development. Sure, most of them are either the typical New York sophisticates or typical country folk, but they are each given scenes that display some degree of depth. Ethan Embry as Bobby Ray is the most interesting side character, and his scenes are the most pivotal in helping Melanie get back to her true self. Candice Bergen is wonderfully sleazy as the constant politician who gets her comeuppance at the end. Place and Ward do a perfect job as Melanie’s parents; her mother “makes the best jam in three counties,” and her father works as an actor in a Civil War recreation. He also has the best line in the movie, as he tells his daughter “you can’t ride two horses with one ass.” Lucas also performed admirably, able to smile through his heartbreak. I heard audible “ooohs” and “ahhhs” from the females in the audience every time the camera afforded a close up of his face, one of the only times I have heard such a response (and that includes Ocean’s 11). He was definitely the right choice for the role.
But the movie fails and succeeds mostly with its star, Reese Witherspoon. She simply radiates every second she is on screen, making the viewer feel instantly comfortable with her presence. She has the perfect girl next door face, a la Meg Ryan, but she has extraordinary talent to boot (anyone who has seen either Election or Pleasantville will certainly attest to that). She has been on the cover of numerous magazines, and her relationship with Ryan Phillipe and their daughter Ava has been well publicized as one of the strongest and healthiest in Hollywood. She can seemingly do no wrong, and judging by the turnout at my local theater, this movie will easily be tops at the box office. She seems to be on top of the world, and the more one hears about her, the clearer it becomes that she really deserves it.
So Sweet Home Alabama will not win any Oscars. It will not make any year-end top ten lists. What it will do is provide a perfectly good source of entertainment for two hours on a Saturday night (and it is a perfect movie to take a girl to!)
The 411: Reese Witherspoon is just too likable to ignore!
