Romcom Triple (Elizabethtown/ Just Like Heaven/ How To Lose A Guy) [DVD]

Elizabethtown has all of the elements of a great Cameron Crowe movie, but none of the Cameron Crowe vision that made Almost Famous work. It's mostly a series of sweet moments, each capped with the right song at the right time; in fact, the soundtrack is the real star of the movie, and the right song is all there is to piece together a film that is much less than the sum of its parts. From the start of Elizabethtown, big contrasts are evoked: death and life, success and failure are side by side, so we're told. When the movie starts, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is experiencing failure and death in spades: the shoe he spent eight years designing for Mercury (a thinly-veiled copy of Nike) has been recalled, costing his company $972 million. On the verge of a suicide attempt, he learns his father has died, and Drew flies to Kentucky to retrieve the body to Oregon for cremation. On the red-eye to Louisville he meets Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst), a perky flight att'ndant with a charming flair for cute lines ("I'm impossible to forget, but I’m hard to remember," she chirps). Once in Elizabethtown, Drew tries to plan a memorial while dealing with relatives who have their own agenda in addition to his manic family back in Oregon, all while facing the reality that in a few days he'll be known nationally as one of his industry's most legendary failures. Yet still he manages to connect with Claire on an all-night cell phone conversation--complete with the requisite watching of the sunrise--and to strike up a furtive romance.

So we now have death and life side by side. But despite these dramatic shifts, what sets up to be a roller coaster ride of a film flattens out to a milquetoast middle ground with no real life of its own. Drew Baylor has suffered two tragic personal losses in the course of one day, but you wouldn't know it from Bloom's lethargic performance. There's not much to Claire either. Her whole character is made up mostly of cutesy quotable lines and mysterious little smirks. In the end, Elizabethtown is a film that doesn't know what it wants to be, and unfortunately there's no payoff, other than a few memorable lines and a great soundtrack. --Dan Vancini

Just Like Heaven

Bad romantic comedies make you scoff at their absurdity; good ones make you wish your life was that absurd. Just Like Heaven is just smart and likable enough to trigger that wishing. David (Mark Ruffalo, Collateral, You Can Count On Me) finds an amazing apartment in San Francisco--only to discover it's haunted by the spirit of the previous tenant, an overachieving doctor named Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon, Legally Blonde, Election). There's something not quite right about Elizabeth's afterlife; against his better judgement, David agrees to help her investigate her life...but finds himself digging into his own as well. The plot takes a twist that some viewers will see coming, but Just Like Heaven doesn't rely on the surprise alone; the revelation takes the story in a new and just as entertaining direction. Witherspoon and Ruffalo are two of the best romantic leads around, but the surprise is how well their contrasting flavors (perky and moody, respectively) mesh, creating a sparky, engaging chemistry. Also featuring Dina Waters (Freaky Friday), Donal Logue (The Tao of Steve), Ben Shenkman (Angels in America), and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite). Crisply directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls), who carefully keeps the supernatural from getting silly and the romance from getting gooey. --Bret Fetzer

How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days

Kate Hudson twinkles as the heroine of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, a magazine writer assigned to date a guy, make all the mistakes girls make that drive guys away (being clingy, talking in baby-talk, etc.), and record the process like a sociological experiment. However, the guy she picks--rangy Matthew McConaughey--is an advertising executive who's just bet that he can make a woman fall in love with him in ten days; if he succeeds, he'll win a huge account that will make his career. The set-up is completely absurd, but the collision of their efforts to woo and repel creates some pretty funny scenes. McConaughey's easy charm and Hudson's lightweight impishness play well together and the plot, though strictly Hollywood formula, chugs along efficiently. At moments Hudson seems to channel her mother, Goldie Hawn, to slightly unnerving effect. --Bret Fetzer