September
27, 2002 | There's something positively mind-numbing about the relentless
predictability of Sweet Home Alabama, an insipid romantic comedy
that forces Reese Witherspoon, the agreeably perky star of Legally
Blonde, to traipse through thickets of Southern-fried clichés
and formulaic contrivances.
You
won't miss anything of great importance if you make frequent trips to
the concession stand, or even take an occasional nap, as the movie shuffles
gracelessly toward its foregone conclusion. Trust me: Whenever you return
to your seat, or regain consciousness, you'll have no trouble guessing
what happened during your absence, and what's bound to happen next.
Witherspoon
plays Melanie Carmichael, a rising Manhattan fashion designer who's
newly engaged to the stunningly hunky and politically ambitious son
(Patrick Dempsey, eerily resembling the late John F. Kennedy Jr.) of
an unusually class-conscious New York mayor (Candice Bergen, more or
less reprising her bitch-on-wheels performance from Miss Congeniality).
But before she can start happily-ever-aftering with her beau, Melanie
must tend to some unfinished business. Specifically, she must return
to her rustic hometown of Pigeon Creek, Ala., and finalize her divorce
from Jake (Josh Lucas), the underachieving husband she abandoned years
ago.
Trouble
is, Jake doesn't want to end the marriage, because he still loves Melanie.
That is, he still loves her until he begins to think she might still
love him. And so… hey, you know where I'm going with this, don't
you? Well, the movie moves in precisely the same direction, albeit much
slower.
Alabama
is the kind of movie in which characters don't talk or act like reasonably
sentient human beings. Rather, they are pushed hither and yon by the
demands of the plot, arbitrarily changing or evolving from scene to
scene only because that's what the screenplay requires them to do. Jake,
for example, may be a swaggering lunkhead one minute, and a sensitive
smart guy a few minutes later. But that doesn't mean he's becoming a
better person. No, it simply means that, in order for Alabama
to get where director Andy Tennant and writer C. Jay Cox want it to
go, Jake becomes whatever is required to keep things progressing in
a safe, straight line.
The
movie is chockablock full of Deep South stereotypes - lots of hard-drinking
good ol' boys, baby-toting good ol' gals and, of course, a scene-stealing,
butt-ugly coon dog. The supporting players - even such reliable actors
as Fred Ward, Jean Smart and Mary Kay Place - simply go through the
motions while earning easy money for undemanding work.
Witherspoon
relies on her considerable charm to skate through the proceedings without
making a complete fool of herself. But she would be well-advised to
avoid career-stalling mishaps such as this. As a star vehicle, Sweet
Home Alabama is a rattletrap jalopy that should be shipped to the
junkyard.