Witherspoon withers in flat, lifeless 'Sweet Home Alabama'
By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
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| SWEET HOME ALABAMA (Rated PG-13 for profanity, violence, adult themes). Two Stars (Fair)
As flat and lifeless as "Legally Blonde" was light and airy. Reese Witherspoon plays a New York fashion designer, forced to go home to Alabama to finalize a divorce from her childhood sweetheart to marry the man of her dreams. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey, Candice Bergen. Directed by Andy Tennant. Touchstone Pictures, 105 minutes. |
Witherspoon was absolutely delightful in the fluffy "Legally Blonde," in which she played a young woman who wasn't as dumb as she seemed. In "Sweet Home Alabama," however, she's playing someone who isn't as smart as she thinks, a much riskier comic proposition.
Directed by Andy Tennant from a script by C. Jay Cox, "Sweet Home Alabama" is a disappointingly flat city mouse/country mouse comedy that can't seem to shovel on enough stale redneck gags. It feels like something that should be a half-hour sitcom on the Lifetime network starring Delta Burke.
When the biggest laugh in the first hour comes from Witherspoon barfing in a pickup truck, you know the movie's in trouble.
Witherspoon plays Melanie Carmichael, who, after her first big show, is being hailed as New York's hottest young fashion designer. On this same momentous night, her Kennedy-esque beau, Andrew (Patrick Dempsey) proposes. This doesn't sit well with Andrew's mother (Candice Bergen), the politically ambitious mayor of New York, who sees Melanie as a social climber.
But Melanie deflects Andrew's wishes to meet her family back in Alabama, saying she hasn't spoken to them in years and that she needs to rebuild some bridges first. In fact, her little secret is that she has a soon-to-be-ex-husband named Jake (Josh Lucas) back home, who has never signed the final divorce papers, though she's been trying to get this finished for seven years.
So she heads back to her piquant little home town of Pigeon Creek, Ala. (actually, the film was shot in Georgia). Jake remains stubborn about the papers for no apparent reason except that, well, if he signed them, the movie would be over. Everyone else seems glad to see Melanie, at least until she makes clear how much she's outgrown them all.
Tennant and Cox seem to think they're channeling Frank Capra here, but they've really stumbled into an extended episode of "Evening Shade." They want this to be a comedy about a spiritual reawakening but the writing is too dispiriting for that.
Tennant wastes a solid cast, including Bergen (who seems to be stuck in "Murphy Brown" mode), Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place (as Melanie's parents), and Jean Smart (as Jake's mom). This movie is so weakly written that even the dog can't get laughs.
The press material for "Sweet Home Alabama" identifies Witherspoon as "America's sweetheart." But the romance could be over if she makes a couple more movies like this.
Rated PG-13 for profanity, violence, adult themes.
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