Okay, I can agree with some of the intelligent criticism of this movie, but half of you guys don't even give reasons, let alone intelligent ones. I know you don't have to have a reason to hate something, but anyway...
I think part of the key to understanding this movie is understanding the culture clash that happens when "Yankees" go to Dixie. I'm from up North, and I lived in Tennesse for about two years and I can honestly say, I know people like the Baylors. My best friend lives in Kentucky, where she goes to school, actually in the Elizabethtown area. Both of us often comment on how we feel like everyone knows and is related to everyone else. While not all the "Hillbilly" or "Redneck" stereo types are true, we have met people who seem like they came straight from a cartoon (to us anyway). So to those who say that it's completely unrealistic to portray the South that way, to those of us who didn't grow up there, sometimes, that's exactly the way it feels.
Also, this movie isn't supposed to move fast. When I first saw it, the thing I thought of most was that it was a melodrama, like real life is. Most of life is really stupid boring, but every once in a while something happens, a death, a birth, a wedding, meeting someone, going somewhere, a failure, or even a success, and for a few days our lives are vibrant and colorful and wondrous. Crazy things happen, and we either laugh at ourselves or we depress ourselves. I thought that it was this aspect of life, it's unpredictablity and the way we react to it was what Crowe was trying to emphasize in making this film.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I think.
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