New On Netflix: Elizabethtown

While Cameron Crowe’s love letter to small-town America (and small-town love stories) isn’t quite on par with Say Anything or even Singles, Elizabethtown lets us know the writer-director still has big ideas and an even bigger heart. Orlando Bloom is fired (by Alec Baldwin) and dumped (by Jessica Biel), which prompts a suicide attempt that’s fortunately foiled by a call from his sister that his father has died. En route to his hometown, he meets an impossibly perfect flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) who helps him get back to his roots in more ways than one. Crowe is a master at characterization and dialogue, which are the two elements that keep this eccentric drama moving at a steady pace even when the story itself meanders (and meanders…).