Elizabethtown

Yesterday, I saw "Elizabethtown".

Some movies do not restrict themselves to an emotion. That's true of all art, of course; Shakespeare opens "Romeo and Juliet" with a scene of witty banter that thrilled me to read it. Perhaps that is a characteristic which people have forgotten to appreciate – like some, maybe most, of the best movies I've seen, "Elizabethtown" was a terrific failure in theaters. But it takes something to make people laugh one minute and cry the next, and to do it as honestly as this.

( Spoilers, possibly minor. )

But really, what's most impressive about the movie is the characterization. People talk a lot, they interact, they get angry and sad, and from the greatest to the least they seem like real people. To talk about the movie again with my mother is to see even more in it than before.


Also, on the side, I shouldn't talk about this movie without talking about the music. The music in this movie is superb. I rarely notice music in movies and I could hear how terrific this soundtrack is.


Yeah, other stuff happened today – installation of a folding futon and so on – but some things aren't worth talking about, and others are.