If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Blistering performances.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I was moved and touched, delighted and entranced by this movie. I've seen it over and over again. It is rich and full, textured and layered. I never fail to get caught up in it, even when I can't spare the time. No need for plot summary. It's just the warm and happy and wonderful feeling you get watching characters develop and the film unfold as a series of vignettes that weave together to take hold of your emotions and make you think about events in your own life.Susan Sarandon gives a wonderful speech in the movie. You'll know it when it comes. Beautiful. The best part is the end. It's as positive and upbeat and heartwarming as can be. Much like Kirsten Dunst's character in the movie. Whom I love. Love, love, love. Mixed bag of reviews to be sure. But I say this is a masterpiece. Possibly the most under-appreciated movie of all time.

There is a great sucking sound as young corporate player Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) realizes he is going to get fired. His mega company gave him carte blanche as a wiz kid to go ahead with a sneaker idea that are foot Edsels and he loses his company millions. Fired , his ingenious attempt at suicide fails in a Buster Keaton silent movie type way (Buster jumped into a six- inch lake and it was tragically funny) but here the joke is a mechanical knife that goes limp at the critical moment. To add insult to injury Drew's long lost father dies; Drew's family phones and pleads for him to take care of funeral arrangements. Nary a tear is shed as Drew dutifully books a flight to small Elizabethtown via Lu'ville, Kentucky. As he is in the air, flight attendant (or angel?) Claire's (Kirsten Dunst) mouth twists in amusement as she sees him as the only passenger in coach and cajoles him to move up to first class to save her tootsies wear and tear, while her eyes make merry snapshots of life's piquant moments. At deboarding she awards him "wings" along with her phone number and some great driving instructions which he intends to ignore. He soon gets royally lost in Kentucky and calls upon her, and slowly realizes that she is infusing energy into him with her Cheshire cat like grin which she uses to baffle all detractors. Here the plot nose dives as if a seven- forty- seven full of Southern family members all crash in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and everyone is walking around in a numb daze while the story tries to catch up with the tragedy of not having much of a third act; but never mind, the story is the journey.

Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is a shoe designer who is taking all the blame for a $972 million fiasco. The shoe is a joke and he's going to be publicly humiliated. Then he gets the news that his father died. He needs to go to Ketucky to get his body. On the flight there, he meets lovely flight attendant Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst).This is a wonderful near miss from writer/director Cameron Crowe. There are great ideas in this movie, but it gets hampered by very bad fakeness. The first, the most obvious, and the most annoying is the shoe idea. What kind of shoe would cost a company $1 billion? The thing in the movie is a complete miss. It's obviously trying to be quirky, but it has no relationship with reality. Cameron could have used something more real like a car. Shoes are sold by celebrities. Everybody knows this since Jordan. Maybe if it was toxic to wear and people got sick from wearing them. Maybe then it would be more realistic.Once the movie gets to Kentucky, the in-laws are a grab bag. Mostly they are fillers. The movie don't seem to understand this. It spends way too much time with them. On the hand, Susan Sarandon and Judy Greer playing his mother and sister have the right kind of tone. They are a bit of comic relief. And Sarandon has one of the better eulogies.Then we get to Kirsten Dunst. She plays the ingénues perfectly well. Of course, she's the origins of 'The Manic Pixie Dream Girl'. I wouldn't call her manic. She should have been called Magical. It's a movie device.There are also too many montages. I'm not specifically calling out the last part of the movie although it could be shorter. Cameron Crowe would be better off saving some of that for another movie. I'm talking about using music instead of dialog. I'm talking about using snippets of phrases instead of a conversation. The night Drew and Claire talked all night on the phone is probably where they fell in love. It deserves a well written exchange.Cameron is trying for something beautiful and poetic. At times, this movie has that. But it keeps on oscillating between a hit and miss.

Elizabethtown starts out with Drew getting fired from his job because of his design of a shoe that turns out to be flawed (basically destroying the company he works for), and his current girlfriend ends their relationship (typical). He ends up almost committing suicide, but fortunately that doesn't happen, and he goes to Elizabethtown because his father passed away. On the way to Elizabethtown he meets outgoing and adventurous stewardess Claire, who bumps him up to first class and in turn they develop a friendship that eventually leads to a romance. Drew brings his father's favourite blue suit with him as requested but much to everyone's chagrin he has his father cremated according to his mother's wishes, and tries to recant, but by then it is too late. Drew ends up going on a road trip adventure (which is probably why I love this movie so much) which heals his heart.