The name Cameron Crowe may not be familiar at first mention, but someone would have had to have been living under a rock for the last 20 years to not know his work. "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Say Anything," "Jerry Maguire," "Almost Famous," "Vanilla Sky" and now "Elizabethtown." Crowe hopes his newest motion picture will gain some of the same success as his previous films, even if the success is not found in box office sales.

"You know what is interesting is what I like most of all is that the stuff I have done has sort of found its audience in one way or another either sooner or later, and I am just really honored by that," Crowe said in a conference call.

He said that "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" was almost not released, "Almost Famous" found a home on DVD and "Vanilla Sky" did well in the theaters.

"So each one of (the movies) is its own journey and I am just grateful that I get to make them. If box office helps me to make another movie, that is great, but I do not think I have ever done anything with the goal of that," Crowe said. "It is mostly just creating characters that people feel are real and that make them laugh or cry or just relate to them in one way or another. That is always the goal — the characters."

"Elizabethtown" centers around Drew Baylor (played by Orlando Bloom, sans his accent) and the ups and downs of his life — but mostly the downs. He is responsible for losing $1 billion for the shoe company he is employed by. He is a smart man, but the loss just about breaks him and pushes him to thoughts of suicide. He may have succeeded if his father hadn't died. Baylor is forced to go to his father's home state of Kentucky to deal with family, a funeral and life itself.

Crowe says that the inspiration for the film was drawn from the way he dealt with the passing of his own father.

"I was traveling through Kentucky and I had not been back there since my own father's funeral years earlier," Crowe said. "The whole kind of elixir of Kentucky and the feeling that is in the air there and remembering my dad in a state that was so much a part of my family's history. That really was the inspiration."

Many people seem to be drawing comparisons to Zach Braff's "Garden State," which Crowe says he had not seen until "Elizabethtown" was almost complete.

It's easy to see where people get this impression. A man struggles with life, finds out a parent dies, needs to travel to get to the funeral and finds a girl who brings him back to life. The movies share a similar premise and a love for music, but each have their own way of working with it. Crowe actually had a chance to sit down with Braff and show him parts of "Elizabethtown."

"I just love that whole milieu of 'Garden State' and the fact that he used that Simon and Garfunkel music and I think like, 'Hallelujah, that the world is big enough for two movies about real characters and in a world where there are a zillion heist movies; let there be more movies about coping with loss and longing with great music,'" Crowe said.

"Elizabethtown" didn't have a strong focus at times, possibly because of the use of several important characters and subplots. The fact that the story focuses on life makes the lack of focus acceptable, because life is sometimes that confusing.

The most interesting part of the movie is near the end. Drew goes on a road trip from Kentucky to Oregon, where he visits several important memorials and finally copes with the loss of his father. Crowe said the basic reason for the road trip is for Drew to gain perspective on his life and the entire world.

Concluding with a seemingly random scene, "Elizabethtown" is poignant and picturesque.

"I like when a movie breaks form sometimes and to go to newsreel footage, and to just kind of take you into Drew's mind and kind of wrap up the story with a little bit of whimsy at the end. I thought was a good way to go," Crowe said of his ending scene choice.

Grade: B

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 13, 2005.