Sweet Home Alabama Has Country Charm

I recently had the honor of attending my friends' Mike and Rebecca's wedding and was very pleasantly surprised. It was one of the very few weddings that I had gone to in recent years where I didn't want to go home afterwards and hang myself from my bathroom shower rod. Harsh, I know. But I mean that in a good way. Most weddings are horrid, drawn-out, monotonous affairs thrown to satisfy everyone but the happy couple. Mike and Rebecca's day of bliss was different. It was held on a beautiful farm in Western Maryland, and the couple threw in so many cool, little, personal touches that just made the evening consistently interesting, upbeat, and, well, just plain fun.

A well-done romantic comedy is like such a wedding. You know exactly where the film is going within the first 15 or so minutes. You know it's going to follow a basic format. A mismatched pair who are obviously a perfect match spend the whole movie using every excuse and succumbing to every pitfall before one or both of them have that great epiphany near the end where they realize their love for each other. As an added bonus, we often get the whole "city girl versus country boy or vice versa" thing as played out in movies ranging from Doc Hollywood to Runaway Bride.

It all comes down to the little, personal touches that the director and the cast throw into the story to make it fresh ... or at least watchable for 90 or so minutes. Thankfully, Sweet Home Alabama has many nice, little, personal touches. Reese Witherspoon stars as Melanie, a small-town Alabama girl who escaped to New York seven years ago and has made it big as a fashion designer. She even has hooked up with the perfect man, Andy (played by late '80s teen idol Patrick Dempsey) who has just proposed to her as the film opens. Andy is essentially a JFK Jr. clone, the wealthy son of New York's mayor (Candice Bergen) who is both handsome AND nice and appears destined for his own sparkling career in politics.

One problem.

Melanie is still married to her childhood sweetheart, Jake (Josh Lucas), a small-town dreamboat who Mel thinks never amounted to anything. The movie follows Melanie on her return to Alabama to convince Jake to finally sign the divorce papers. She also needs to reunite with her parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), all the while maintaining the ruse that she is the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner to Andy and to the New York media.

I don't have to tell you that Melanie rediscovers the pleasures of small-town living upon her return. I don't have to tell you that she reconnects with the local town's folk who she grew up with and who still adore her. And I don't have to detail to you how deep down Melanie has never really gotten over her first love.

But what I will call to your attention are some of the things that just made this movie for me. Nutty, little moments that didn't seem preprogrammed from Screenwriting 101. There was the terrific scene where Melanie goes to find her dad, one of those Civil War battle reenactors, and wades through a field of fake Confederate dead most of whom are more than willing to lift up one eye and tell her where he might be found. Or, there was the scene where Jake comes home to find that Reese has completely redecorated his "man's house," even doing away with his favorite refrigerator magnets. She even has bought a new centerpiece for the dining room table that really makes the whole room work.

Not all of the film's best scenes are quirky, comic moments, though. There were some nice, dramatic moments, too, such as the pet cemetery scene where Melanie goes to say goodbye to the dog she abandoned years earlier, who had died in her absence. I also was surprised by the fact that Melanie is not completely likable, as evidenced by a scene halfway through where she gets drunk and rather cruelly "outs" a local gay man (Ethan Embry) who she grew up with. It takes a few scenes for the audience to get back on her side, and rightfully so.

Finally, I especially liked that Tennant and his team of screenwriters didn't vilify Jake or Andy to give Melanie an easy out. Reese's character has to make a real choice at the end of this movie, and the audience has come to both like and care for both men. Jake and Andy are good guys, they both have dimpled smiles that can melt panties, and they both want only the best for the woman they love. The villain theatrics are provided by Bergen in a thankless, but showy role as Andy's shrewish, overbearing mother, who believes Melanie is just a low-class manipulator.

I enjoyed Sweet Home Alabama. Reese Witherspoon does nothing to lose the enormous good will she has built up from her wonderful performances in Election and Legally Blonde. And the film even endeared me to a few new faces who I want to see more of in future movies, especially Lucas (who was also memorable as Russell Crowe's campus rival in A Beautiful Mind). Sweet Home Alabama is one of those flicks that I will describe to my friends and family as a "nice movie" in the days to come, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Sweet Home Alabama is rated a very, very mild PG-13 for some language and sexual references.