Themes: Haunted By the Past, Rags To Riches, Wedding Bells
Main Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey, Candice Bergen, Mary Kay Place
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 108 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
After establishing herself as a bankable star with the fish out of water comedy Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon returns in what could be described as a "fish back in water" comedy. Melanie Carmichael (Witherspoon) is a successful New York fashion designer who is dating Andrew Hennings (Patrick Dempsey), a wealthy socialite whose mother, Katherine Hennings (Candice Bergen), is the Big Apple's mayor. One day, Andrew pops the big question and asks Melanie to marry him; Melanie is overjoyed, but unknown to Andrew, Melanie has some unfinished business to take care of first. Despite her polished uptown image, Melanie grew up poor in the deep South, and as a teenager she married her high school sweetheart Jake Perry (Josh Lucas). Things went sour and Melanie moved East, reinventing herself along the way, but Jake never bothered to legally end their marriage. Now Melanie has to return to her hometown of Pigeon Creek, AL, to tell her parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place) the news and convince Jake to grant her a divorce; however, the more time she spends with her old flame, the more she feels sparks flying between them again, while she also learns her Eastern affectations don't fly with everyone back home. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
After a string of edgy and often deliberately unsympathetic performances in such films as Freeway, American Psycho, and Election, Reese Witherspoon was probably as surprised as anyone that America was ready to let her become its latest sweetheart. But after the runaway success of Legally Blonde, the budding superstar stuck to safe, fairy-tale material with this mostly winning romantic comedy. Populated by lovable eccentrics and plain but good folks, Sweet Home Alabama's Pigeon Creek is indistinguishable from any number of other sanitized, fictional Southern towns. But Witherspoon, with her kewpie countenance and iron spine, differs just enough from the conventional leading lady to remove the aftertaste from the saccharine material. Taking her cues from the conniving Julia Roberts school of heroines rather than the blander Meg Ryan variety, she drinks, cusses, and condescends her way to a perverse likability. The more she resembles a Jerry Springer guest, the more the audience cheers her on. The film's reassuring "I'm okay, you're okay" geographic relativism may not play well to self-satisfied Manhattanites, but it sure goes down well everywhere else. Heartthrobs Ethan Embry, Patrick Dempsey, and Joshua Lucas provide the requisite broad-based sex appeal, while everyone from Candice Bergen and Jean Smart to Mary Kay Place supplies laughs and lovable stereotypes. Jewel chimes in with the inevitable Lynyrd Skynyrd cover, and boom -- something safe for everyone, like all the best blockbusters. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Jay Pelissier - Art Director, Jeanne McCarthy - Casting, Juel Bestrop - Casting, Kathleen Chopin - Casting, Sophie de Rakoff Carbonell - Costume Designer, Louis D'Esposito - First Assistant Director, Andy Tennant - Director, Troy T. Takaki - Editor, Tracey Wadmore-Smith - Editor, Michael Fottrell - Executive Producer, Jon Jashni - Executive Producer, Wink Mordaunt - Executive Producer, George Fenton - Composer (Music Score), Dawn Solér - Musical Direction/Supervision, Laura Z. Wasserman - Musical Direction/Supervision, Clay Griffith - Production Designer, Andrew Dunn - Cinematographer, Stokely Chaffin - Producer, Neal H. Moritz - Producer, Lisa K. Sessions - Set Designer, Mary H. Ellis - Sound/Sound Designer, Douglas J. Eboch - Screen Story, C. Jay Cox - Screenwriter, George Watters II - Supervising Sound Editor, Suhail F. Kafity - Supervising Sound Editor
The story is a love triangle involving two childhood Alabama sweethearts who married but became estranged, Jake Perry and Melanie Smooter (Lucas and Witherspoon), and Melanie's longtime boyfriend Andrew Hennings (Dempsey).
Melanie is a successful fashion designer. When she becomes engaged to Andrew, the son of the mayor of New York City, Melanie announces that she has to go back home alone to Alabama to tell her parents in person. Her private reason is to demand a divorce from Jake. She has not told Andrew that she is still married.
Jake refuses to divorce her until one night she gets drunk and explains to everyone in the bar that the reason she married Jake was because she was pregnant, and she later had a miscarriage. Jake becomes angry with her and takes her home. When she wakes up the next morning, the divorce papers are laying on her bed signed by Jake.
Melanie learns that Jake had once gone to New York City to try to find her, because he still loved her. That night, she goes to the cemetery to tell her old coon dog Bear good bye. Jake shows up and explains how he told the dog that her disappearance was his fault and they end up talking about why the marriage didn't work, the baby they lost, and why she left. Jake gives a blessing for Melanie to have a good life with Andrew, but Melanie says she can't do it and kisses Jake. Jake pushes her away, however, and tells her to go home.
The next day, Andrew arrives in town. Jake meets him and discovers that he is Melanie's boyfriend. Jake, identifying himself as Melanie's cousin, brings Andrew to Melanie. Andrew finds out that Melanie is still married to Jake and runs off angrily.
Melanie returns to her parents' house where her father walks in with Andrew. Andrew tells her how sorry he is and how he wants to still marry her. They decide to have the wedding in Alabama and Andrew's mother comes down from New York. On her wedding day, as she is walking down the aisle, and her lawyer shows up and explains that Jake signed the divorce papers, but she didn't. Melanie decides to not sign the papers, and that she doesn't want to marry Andrew, because she still loves Jake which Andrew understands. She runs away from her wedding to go find Jake, who is on the same beach where, years ago, ten-year-old Jake had told her that he wanted to marry her "so I can kiss you anytime I want."
Melanie tells him that she didn't marry Andrew because she wanted to be with him so that she could kiss him whenever she wanted to. As Jake and Melanie kiss, Wade, the town sheriff, interrupts them by handcuffing them and taking them back to Stella's, Jake's mother's bar, where all of their friends and family are waiting.
Although the film is centered around the city Greenville, Alabama, it was filmed in Georgia. The Carmichael plantation which Melanie tells the reporter is her childhood home is the Oak Hill Berry Museum. Oak Hill is a historic landmark in Georgia, and is on the Berry College campus in Mount Berry, Georgia. The historic homes Melanie passes by as she enters Greenville were shot in Eufaula, Alabama.
Also the glassblowing shop that belongs to Jake in the film was actually an old mill, named Starr's Mill, in Fayette County, Georgia. When Jake lands his plane on the lake it was actually Lake Peachtree in Peachtree City, Georgia.
Reception
Critical reception
The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. On the film's Rotten Tomatoes listing, 37% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 154 reviews.[1]
Box office
Generating the biggest opening of September, the film grossed over $35 million in its first weekend. By the end of its run in the U.S., Sweet Home Alabama grossed over $130 million and another $53,399,006 internationally.[2]
