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Sweet
Home Alabama is a better movie than The Tuxedo. But it is still only 75 percent of what it
should have been and could have been had Disney hired one
of a bunch of guys who could have raised the bar.
Garry Marshall would have delivered a solid
hit. Jonathan Lynn
would have hit a double. Jay Roach would have hit a triple. Frank Oz would have hit it out of the
park. And there are
others. Like I wrote, Andy Tennant is a nice
guy. And I’m sure that Reese Witherspoon’s Drew-like
ascendance put him right in the studio’s cross-hairs.
But he’s just not the guy.
There
is no bigger Reese Witherspoon supporter amongst critics
than I. Andy Sarris can crush a lot, but I’ve been pushing Reese
since back in the Fear/Freeway/Overnight Delivery days. I walked out of Election and started
telling everyone about the Academy Award she deserved (and
she did). I was thrilled to enjoy Legally Blonde
and to watch he carry and entire Hollywood-style film on her
shoulders. And I wanted to love Sweet Home Alabama.
But
I had to get past Tennant’s inability to sell gags.
Don Petrie showed real promise with Mystic
Pizza and after six really awful films, he showed that
he can do this job with Miss Congeniality, one of the
most competently directed comedies in recent years. Forget those four other guys… Petrie could
have added $20 million to the S.H.A. box office by getting
the notes right. (He
came to mind, actually, because Candice Bergen is completely
wasted in Sweet Home Alabama and she was used just
right in Miss Congeniality.)
I
gave you one unspoilable sequence from The Tuxedo,
so I will try to do the same for Sweet Home Alabama.
Okay… you’ve seen the trailer, so you know that Witherspoon
has to go back to Alabama and get her divorce from her folksy,
great-looking childhood love finalized. There is a scene where she gets into his house
using a decade-old Hide-A-Key.
For three or four minutes, he tries to get her out
and she tries to get in… to simplify.
This
is a comedy basic. The tension builds as control bounces back
and forth between two characters.
Basic. Tennant
doesn’t even know how to start it… because there is no choice,
unless there is a genius choice. She has to be unable to get in and her first
good/strong/self-empowering memory has to be that she knows
how to get in… she is unstoppable.
And he has to be made vulnerable and also has to get
turned on by her invasion. He’s not ready, but she still wants him, so
he’ll deal. But she
makes it clear that she doesn’t want him.
But he’s going to prove her wrong… etc, etc, etc…
The
point is, the ebb and flow of power in this scene, shown visually
and emotionally, is hard to screw up.
But Tennant does it. Even the beat in which she gets “eaten” by
his La-Z-Boy… it doesn’t play half as well as it should…. because the director doesn’t know how to drive
the joke. Tenant gives
us the legs-flying-in-the-air payoff, but so what?!?!
There are at least five or six great beats setting
up that payoff and the actors are there and they are doing
their jobs and if he knew how to block the scene, he had it
in his hands… but he doesn’t.
It
frustrates me. And I don’t like picking on people. But damn… you have Reese Witherspoon, Fred
Ward, Mary Kay Place, Candice Bergen, Jena Smart, Ethan Embry,
Melanie Lynskey and Josh Lucas embodying the best
version of Matthew McConaughey since that first Vanity
Fair cover… a sure fire movie-star-making role.
And what we got was a watchable comedy that will play
better on TV. This is a $100 million movie from birth. And they got Witherspoon at a price. And while they will make money, they will make
tens of millions less than they could have.
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