Film Review: Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
Hollywood, like the rest of America, over-reacted to 9/11. At least that can be said of studio executives that saw nation rallying around the flag and implicitly supporting George W. Bush and everything he stood for. Some believed that it was part of long-term trend rather than temporary phenomenon and tried to adapt to it by films that couldn’t have been made in years before and years afterwards. One of such examples is Sweet Home Alabama, 2002 romantic comedy directed by Andy Tennant.
The protagonist is Melanie Carmichael (played by Reese Witherspoon), a young, sophisticated and incredibly successful fashion designer in Manhattan. Her fame and wealth are complemented by a relationship with Andrew Hennings (played by Patrick Dempsey), America’s most desirable bachelor – a handsome son of Kate Hennings (played by Candice Bergen), a wealthy and power mayor New York City mayor who grooms her son for presidential ruin. But when Andrew offers her an engagement ring and the media starts speculating about it, Melanie is suddenly aware of a problem she thought was part of her past. Namely, before she became a wealthy and successful New Yorker, Melanie spent her life in the small Alabama town of Pigeon Creek and was married to a handsome, but poor and unrefined, local man Jake Perry (played by Josh Lucas). Disgusted by the lack of life prospects, she left her husband, created a new life and identity, but also forgot about formalities like divorce. Therefore, after a long time she is forced to return to her home town to obtain it. But her short stay is going to be slightly extended – Jake does not think about giving her a divorce, at least not before his wife admits her roots and considers him a man of her life. Melanie eventually begins to recall the happy days of childhood and realises that life in a small town still has some of its charms. Andrew, meanwhile, goes on a in search for his fiancée, unaware of the problems he will create for her.
The most interesting thing about Sweet Home Alabama is that completely inverts Hollywood paradigm of displaying differences between urban and rural America. Small provincial towns, instead of being embodiment of epitome of racism, bigotry and poverty, have suddenly become not only pleasant places to live, but also morally superior to cold and hypocritical big cities. Even the hoisting of Confederate flags and the evocation of bright slave-owning and rebellious traditions ( in the form of a Civil War battle reconstructions) is shown with relentless sympathies. But the biggest shock comes when viewers realize that the biggest villain in the film – is the hypocritical mayor, some kind of mix between Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton – has been explicitly confirmed as a member of the Democrat Party, an organisation that was considered beyond any criticism by modern Hollywood.
But if ideological context is set aside, Sweet Home Alabama represents nothing that viewers haven’t seen before. Screenwriter C. Jay Cox and director Andy Tennant serve us the usual clichés of American romantic comedy, including the even the obligatory gay character Bobby Ray (played by Ethan Embry) as the best possible friend for female protagonist. This also serves as an opportunity to show how the times have chanced and that Bush America actually became tolerant of minorities. When Bobby Ray’s sexual orientation is revealed in smoke-filled rural bar, the only reaction by macho patrons is going to be benevolent pat on the shoulder. But this scene is actually one of the more plausible elements of the script, at least compared to the film’s main plot development that asks audience to believe in successful and wealthy protagonist being willing to sacrifice everything in order to continue living with a loser in a dead end rural town. Even worse is another, more common, flaw of many Hollywood romantic comedies – actual lack of humour. With her great comic talent, Reese Witherspoon managed to save both seemingly hopeless plots and characters (like in Legally Blonde), but Sweet Home Alabama proved to be too much even for her abilities. She tried very hard, but all she succeded in doing was to make film watchable and nothing more than that. Sweet Home Alabama is film that would be interesting only to scholars interested in researching short-term cultural trends, while the viewers seeking entertainment would have to look elsewhere.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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