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What happens when a mogul fashion queen leaves New York City to return to her hometown in Alabama to divorce her high school-era husband? Comedies, chaos and complications ensue.
The romantic comedy “Sweet Home Alabama” is the story of up-and-coming fashion designer Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon) engaged to a JFK Jr.-esque son, Andrew (Patrick Dempsey). Her upscale life quickly changes when she must go home to Alabama to divorce Jake (Josh Lucas), whom she married on a whim in high school.
Andrew’s mother (Candice Bergen), who wants to keep her NYC mayor status up and swinging, has doubts about the ‘sweet and innocent’ Melanie. She sends part of her own private team to investigate the Southern Belle and complications ensue. Melanie, who comes into Alabama with deep disdain for her hometown, eventually starts to fall back in love with her town and her roots.
Witherspoon, one of Hollywood’s most gifted and sought-after actors of the moment, does a fantastic job in attempting to hold this movie together. Unfortunately, even she can’t stave off the phoniness and brash stereotypes the story portrays. We’ve got the ‘perfect’ rich son (Dempsey) of a snide big-city politician (Bergen), the Cinderella-style powerful, yet insecure woman (Witherspoon), and the ‘down-home’ boy (Lucas). There’s also the city vs. country stereotypes that both simplify and insult everyone involved (Melanie’s hometown is named Pigeon Creek!).
However, she does deserve credit for attempting to turn this movie from just another sappy romance into one filled with laughs and charm.
In one scene, Melanie stumbles into the final moments of a Civil War reenactment while searching for her father. Walking through a field of “casualties,” she asks where he is and one of the corpses, being a good ‘ole Southern boy, rises from the dead to help point her in the right direction. The film needs more of this charming sense of humor and less predictable lines.
Patrick Dempsey lacks personality as the swinging city-boy, yet somehow manages to ooze his star-power status as a character set up from the beginning to be the spoiled little rich boy. Candice Bergen shines as Andrew’s disapproving mother – the cynical, wisecracking mayor of NYC.
All in all, “Sweet Home Alabama” will make you laugh out loud whether you’re a ‘city’ or ‘country’ mouse (as long as you don’t think about it a great deal). Sometimes we all need a little enjoyable fluffiness in our lives.
“Sweet Home Alabama” opened Thursday and is rated PG-13 for some language/sexual references.
