Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas Patrick Dempsey, Fred Ward, Mary Kay Place
Director: Andy Tennant
A movie title that rolls off the tongue s easily you’d think you had heard it a million times before: probably because you have as it’s also the name of that very famous Lynyrd Skynyrd song from the seventies, and yes the song is used in the movie, at least two different versions, very effectively.
The movie SWEET HOME ALABAMA is about Melanie (Reese Witherspoon) a girl from the south who marries young, then leaves her husband and goes north to New York where he rejects her southern roots and becomes a successful fashion designer. There she meets and gets engaged to Andrew (Patrick Dempsey) the New York mayor’s (Candice Bergen) son. However she doesn’t tell him that she was previously married or that she had never got a divorce.
Now, with a wedding looming closer and her southern husband Jake (Josh Lucas) who won’t sign the divorce papers, she must return home to tie up loose ends and get the papers signed.
The majority of the movie is set back in Alabama and the idea that as Melanie says “you need a passport to come down here” is the main theme running through the film. The differences in attitudes and lifestyles between the north and the south are constantly played upon but neither side really comes out on top, it’s more observing the differences rather than mocking them.
As for the role of Melanie, Reese Witherspoon virtually plays her LEGALLY BLONDE role backwards, this time starting out with the bright, ambitious and hardened attitude and finally returning to her softer side.
The movie is very predictable and in a way cliched but it’s also well acted and easy to watch and for those who are interested in such things – Reese Witherspoon looks hot from start to finish!
Overall the film is quite an enjoyable experience with a good soundtrack. It’s not exactly a comedy, it’s more just humorous with a few laughs and some romantic undertones, not enough to make it a chick flick, but it would be a good ‘date’ movie.
Definitely not another LEGALLY BLONDE, we will have to wait for LEGALLY BLONDE 2 for that, but as long as you like mainstream movies it’s one to watch.
