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.
