Elizabethtown (2005)

Wow. TBG has more than one facial expression in this movie. Impressive. Okay, I really didn't expect to like this movie at all. Romantic comedy down-home small town charm Orlando Bloom = Hannah runs away. However, Anna recommended it so I faithfully trotted off to rent it. And I really enjoyed the first half of the movie. It had a pleasantly dry and morbid sense of humor without going too over the top, and the characters themselves were even mildly interesting. Then about halfway through, things started going downhill. There was a cliched "I don't care if you've failed" scene (followed by, of course, neither character being sensible). There was a very, very strange scene at a funeral/memorial service involving the deceased's wife doing a stand-up comedy routine, followed by a tap dance number. That was a true "what the flipping HECK?" moment for me. Perhaps it was meant to be charming, but for me it just baffled me. And then the end picked up again. So, you know, if you cut about twenty minutes from the middle, you get a pretty solidly good romcom. But those twenty minutes so jolted me out of my "this is a good movie" mindset that I don't think I ever quite recovered. 3.5 stars.