This Day in Theaters: Sept. 27, 2002

Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

The first thing you are probably thinking is "this movie is 10 years old"! The next thing you are probably thinking is why we here at the Film Junkeez are profiling this movie as part of our This Day in Theaters series. Well there are two reasons for that: not too many movies of note have been released on this date and in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle's Jonathan Curiel, "This is a feel-good movie that actually makes you feel good." It is the story of a young southern woman, Reese Witherspoon, who upon getting engaged to a JFK Jr. facsimile, Patrick Dempsey, must travel back home to Alabama and get her ex-husband to sign divorce papers; a marriage her fiancee and future mother-in-law are unaware of. Once she arrives we get to see the funny contrast between Witherspoon's new city girl persona and her redneck family and friends; and being someone who grew up in the south many of these stereotypes portrayed are true. Will she end up falling back in love with her ex-husband?

Some more from Curiel:

"There's a certain formulaic and familiar quality about "Sweet Home Alabama, " but it doesn't matter. This is a film that uses traditional screenwriting touches (like characters from antithetical social classes falling in love) to great effect, mining the material for laughs, awkward moments and a sweet revelry that is endearing and infectious." 

But many others don't see it that way. For instance Mike Clark of USA Today:

"Sweet Home Alabama is the latest picture to give you the sense that Hollywood filmmakers simply plucked another old pop-tune title ripe for ripping off, then were shaken by the rude reality of coming up with a script to jerry-build around it" 

Despite the name of the movie these guys don't make an appearance

And most of the negative reviews focus on what Clark was talking about. Yes the film is formulaic and yes it seems 100% manufactured for mucho dinero. By the way, it took in over $180 million against a budget of $38 million so the producers did their jobs. But who cares why it was made or if we've seen it before? These are the kinds of movies we like when we want to see a happy ending with some romance and laughs along the way. I am quite confident the writers and directors weren't attempting to channel their inner Kubrick so why hold these films to such high standards? Sure there are some minor gripes I have about the film. Like where the hell in Alabama does this take place since they seem to be very close to the Gulf of Mexico yet the location looks more close to the Piedmont region? But only I care about stuff like that and you can't let it ruin a movie for you. While I wouldn't pay to see this one I would recommend checking it out if its on TV, which happens about 568 times each year.

IMDb Score: 5.9

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 37% (Click and check out the audience score)