I finally saw the movie "Elizabethtown" last weekend, and it's taken me a a full week to completely digest it. In the end, I have to say that it's a bit of a mess. Not one single character behaves in a realistic manner. As I consider the romantic comedies and dramas that writer/director Cameron Crowe has made over the last two decades, it occurs to me that he has progressively moved from a realistic tone to a more stylized and nostalgic one. Until now, he's always succeeded. "Almost Famous," for example, presents an extremely nostalgic version of the world, but it works perfectly because all the emotions ring true. And that stylized version of the world only enhances those true emotions.

In "Elizabethtown," however, the two romantic leads continuously throw up contrived emotional barriers to their happiness for seemingly no other purpose than to delay the resolution of their mutual wooing until the end of the movie. Having next to no interaction with the film's dominant storyline, Susan Sarandon seems plucked from an entirely different movie altogether and dropped into this one at random. Australian Orlando Bloom uses an American accent that is so utterly nondescript that his emotional responses come off as only slightly more human than a robot's. And then there's Kirsten Dunst. Her character is, to say the least, a bit of a goofball. She's overly dramatic. She has all these odd mannerisms and sayings that seem contrived simply to make her more interesting and memorable to those around her. There are plenty of people in the real world who behave in exactly this manner. And just as there are some people in the real world who can use such behaviors to make themselves *more* likable and some who instead make themselves *less* likable, there are also some actresses who can successfully portray such characters as likable while some actresses succeed only in making them unlikable. Sadly, Dunst falls into the latter character this time around. As perfect as she was playing a pivotal role in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," here she fails spectacularly in any effort to help us understand why Orlando Bloom's character would find her so endearing.

That said, while "Elizabethtown" is a mess, it is an *interesting* mess. In the last week, I haven't gone more than a few waking hours at a time without thinking about it. Maybe it's just the timing, as I've in some ways reached a crossroads in figuring out who I am and where I'm going in both my personal and professional lives. Perhaps if I'd seen the film a year earlier or a year later I'd just dismiss it outright. Or maybe I'm giving it more credit because it was filmed in Louisville (the city in which I was born) and E-town (a town where several of my relatives live).

Regardless of why, the movie has struck a chord with me. And while the emotional core of the film rings false more often than it rings true, it does get one thing right: everyone is absolutely insane. Movies usually present the most sympathetic characters as incredibly confident and stable people in full control of their worlds, or if they aren't yet confident and stable, they will be by the time the credits roll. But in reality, even the most confident and stable of people have a surplus of turmoil. No one really has *the* answer for coping with it. We all just deal with it on our own unique ways. Some better than others. That's what "Elizabethtown" gets right.

And then there's the movie's last lines. (Don't worry. This doesn't spoil anything.) These lines just keep repeating in my head over and over and over again. They don't say anything I haven't heard before, but for some reason I'm actually listening this time:

No true fiasco ever began as a quest for mere adequacy. A motto of the British Special Air Force is: "Those who risk, win." A single green vine shoot is able to grow through cement. The Pacific Northwestern salmon beats itself bloody on its quest to travel hundreds of miles upstream against the current, with a single purpose—sex, of course—but also life.

Never mind that the unit is actually called the Special Air Service. Or that its real motto is "Who Dares Wins." Me? I prefer Cameron Crowe's version. Those who risk, win. Those who risk, win. Those who risk, win...