birdire phileman neciah
Rosita Westhouse
The lead character, a successful fashion designer living in New York City, learns to see the good in her rural Alabama hometown. An excess of "Southern" cliches and stock Southern behavior, but the movie does challenge regional stereotyping of place and character. When the main character outs her friend in front of everyone in hometown bar while extremely drunk, his peers offer positive models of acceptance.
Parents need to know that Sweet Home Alabama stars Reese Witherspoon as Melanie, a New York City fashion designer who returns to her rural Alabama town. Unlike so many movies in which Southerners are portrayed as little more than punchlines or bullying bigots, even the minor characters here have some depth and rise above typical stereotypes, even if the movie sometimes comes off as trying a little too hard to prove its Dixieness. Also encouraging: When a closeted gay man is outed in public, his friends offer positive models of acceptance. On the iffier side, you can expect occasional profanity, including "s--t," "d--k," "bitch," "piss," "bastard," and "t-t." There are references to teen pregnancy, and Melanie gets drunk at a bar: She acts belligerent, vomits, and passes out. Drinking, vandalism, and minor crimes are portrayed as evidence of a free spirit. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
In SWEET HOME ALABAMA, Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon) is a fashion designer just breaking through to the big time with her first solo show. Not only is it a huge success, but she also gets a swooningly romantic marriage proposal from a gorgeous, thoughtful, supportive man (Patrick Dempsey) who adores her -- and who happens to be the son of the mayor of New York (Candice Bergen). It's the 21st-century Cinderella dream come true, except for one hitch -- literally. Way back when she was just Melanie Cooter of Pigeon Creek, Alabama, she got herself hitched to her childhood sweetheart, and now she needs to get herself unhitched so that she can be free to marry Prince Charming. So, she goes back home for the first time in seven years, and she finds out that you can take the girl out of Pigeon Creek, but you can't take Pigeon Creek out of the girl. Her accent comes back, and, more disconcertingly, so do some of her feelings for her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas).
Witherspoon has the charm, sparkle, and impeccable comic timing to keep an entire movie afloat and make it look effortless. It takes every bit of her talent and all-around adorability to keep this romantic comedy aloft, considering the considerable weight of its uncertain script. Without her, even the enticing premise and an exceptionally able supporting cast would sink under the weight of a plot that somehow manages to be both predictable and disjointed. The movie spends too much time reuniting Melanie with people from her past. It also spends much too much time introducing us to all kinds of adorable cracker stereotypes, and on a tired plot twist about Melanie's exaggeration of her family's social standing.
A terrific soundtrack helps, with a cover of the irresistible title tune and delicious songs by country greats. Lucas and Dempsey are both dreamy enough that even movie-savvy viewers may find it hard to pick the winner.
Families can talk about "opposite" places and people. How does the movie use the opposites of New York City and rural Alabama to reveal not only differences in people, but similarities as well? How might this message be relevant today, during a time when such differences are routinely exploited by politicians and pundits?
Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy, while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming, recycling of this ancient myth.
The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.
Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen) is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of unfinished business.
Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart, but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser, she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.
When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to "go back to your double-wide and fry something." The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and his coon dog still likes her.
The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding, as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York, a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.
So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C. Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights, big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.") But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower? The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why "Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?
After leaving her small town life in favor of a career in fashion in New York City, a Southern girl must return home. She needs a divorce from her childhood sweetheart to marry her current boyfriend, but he isn't letting her go easily. Despite the name, "Sweet Home Alabama" was actually filmed in Georgia. Reese Witherspoon, Patrick Dempsey, Candace Bergen and Josh Lucas star in the film, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2022.
Located on the campus of Berry College, Oak Hill was the home of school founder Martha Berry. In "Sweet Home Alabama," the mansion was used as the Carmichael Plantation, where Melanie is supposed to get married. The Greek Revival manor housed Union soldiers during the Civil War. The Martha Berry Museum opened in 1972 and features paintings of notable Americans as well as artifacts from the Berry family. The stunning grounds were one of the three display gardens in the state.
Used to stage the large-scale Civil War reenactment with Melanie's father Earl, the Georgia International Horse Park in Conyers was one of the sites of the 1996 Olympic Games. Volleyball, equestrian and pentathlon events took place here. In addition to the namesake equestrian park, the facility includes a lakeside beach, children's pool, slides, tennis courts and walking trails.
The small town of Crawfordville, with a population under 1,000, portrayed Melanie's hometown in the film with a number of local businesses serving as the backdrop. The Taliaferro County Courthouse, built in the High Victorian style, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. You can see a number of filming locations from "Sweet Home Alabama" and others around town.
The communities south of Atlanta have been full of film productions over the last few years. So, the Peachtree City-based Southern Hollywood Film Tour takes visitors to some of the most notable places, including landmarks from "Drop Dead Diva," "Joyful Noise," and "Sweet Home Alabama." The tour includes a stop by Starr's Mill, featured in the movie, as well as the nearby towns of Haralson and Senoia.
90f70e40cf