Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

Elizabethtown, directed by Cameron Crowe, starts off with a colossal business failure. Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) has spent the better part of eight years designing a groundbreaking shoe called the Spasmodica which, it turns out, is flawed and will cost the company he works for almost 1 billion dollars.

Drew is promptly fired and attempts to commit suicide but before he gets a phone call from his sister informing him of his fathers’ death. His sister also tells him that he has to go to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, as a representative of the family, to retrieve his father and bring him back to Oregon.

The journey that follows is one of self-discovery for Drew that is perpetuated by a flight attendant named Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) that he meets and falls in love with. Through Claire and his relatives in Kentucky, Drew realizes life is much more than a failed shoe and that it is better to try to achieve greatness and fail than to never try at all.

I didn’t see this movie initially because the reviews were poor but I enjoyed the movie and recommend giving it a shot. I read somewhere that it was a less contrived Garden State and that feels about right (I did enjoy Garden State though). So, if you’re looking for a movie with a good perspective on life, check out Elizabethtown. You won’t regret it.