Rencontres à Elizabethtown

I don't know. It seems to me that Americans have lost their taste for "small" films - films that emphasize character, rather than explosions and movement. You get the same sort of comments with movies like Tim Burton's wonderful Big Fish or Spielberg's Terminal. I will admit that the Dunst character is a cliché, but this movie is really about the extras, the characters that step out of the background, have their moment, and step back again. Paula Dean stands out as a woman to whom family -- *all* her family -- is all-important and who keeps it together with food and photographs. I'm not from Kentucky or the South, although I've lived South for a number of years. I'm not that interested in *my* extended family -- and in that respect I'm far closer to the Bloom character than to the Dean character. But I recognize that this film is a great portrait of a certain kind of family life. Also, the dead father becomes a very well-rounded character indeed, as you think about the contradictions of his life. This is a film that expects the audience to do a little work, and it pays very well for that work.