Elizabethtown

—1. Overview (multimedia)

—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters (Orlando Bloom)
—8. Production Notes
—9. Spiritual Connections
(A Musical Bible Study Guide)
—10. Presentation Downloads
—11. A Musical Bible Study Guide
(Word doc download)
—12. A Musical Bible Study Guide
(PDF download)

I recently read that Jonathan Sachs, the chief rabbi of Great Britain has noted that the Hebrew Scriptures include one commandment to love one’s neighbor, but thirty-six commandments to love or care for strangers.

In Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, Drew, a young man fresh off a major failure, travels to Kentucky, where his father has suddenly died, to make arrangements to bring his remains home to Oregon. Along the way he is cared for and loved by a collection of strangers: his father’s extended family whom he doesn’t know, a stewardess who sees her life as helping others (but needs someone to help her was well), and even a wedding party at the hotel he’s staying at. Drew is very much an alien in a strange land when he arrives in Elizabethtown, but through the gifts of love shared with him by these people he doesn’t know, he gets a chance at a new life beyond his failure.

Drew is something of a lost soul. He has just spent the last few years of his life designing an athletic shoe that is so bad his company will lose nearly a billion dollars. He is on the edge of the abyss when he learns his father has died, and he has to set aside his own doom to deal with his father’s.

How appropriate that as lost as he is, he meets someone who is well traveled and can give him some direction – Claire, a stewardess who sees her mission in life as helping others. She begins by giving Drew directions to get from the airport to Elizabethtown. He still manages to get lost. When he does finally find his way to the town, the entire population knows who he is and points the way to the funeral home where he begins to make arrangements. But even with Claire and the entire population of Elizabethtown, Drew is still a lost soul.

There are many reasons he’s so lost. First, he’s cut himself off from his family. An early scene shows his family having holiday dinner, and he is only there as a picture on the table. He has found a new family in the shoe company he has been working for – even a father-figure in his Zen-like boss. But when failure comes, the workplace family deserts him.

He also senses that the direction of his life – materialism and the drive for what he has considered success – really heads nowhere. Later in the film, Drew notes “Success, not greatness, is the only god the whole world serves.� He has been serving that god and discovered that he got nothing in return. His life to this point has, he discovers, only led him to despair.

It is at this point that strangers begin to take care of him – Claire, his extended family and the inhabitants of Elizabethtown, even a bridal party (and they do party) that is staying at his hotel. Everyone just adopts him and tries to get him pointed in a direction that leads to life. It doesn’t matter that he is from California (actually Oregon, but for them it’s all California); they all sense that here is a sojourner among them who needs help. And as the Torah instructs, they care for this stranger.

Drew isn’t the only one who’s lost. His cousin Jessie is lost when it comes to knowing how to be a single father. His mother is lost in knowing how to grieve the death of her husband. Claire, Drew’s primary guide, is just as lost as he is. Crowe describes Claire: “[She says,] ‘I like helping people. I’m here to help you.’ But if you look deep in her eyes you see ‘One day somebody will help me.’� Life, the film seems to be telling us, is not so much a matter of anyone knowing the way, but of lost strangers helping other lost strangers, and in the process, everyone finding their way.

The final act of the film is a road trip Drew takes with his father’s ashes. Claire has created a very detailed itinerary for him and given him CDs to listen to along the way. This road trip is a great gift for him. Along the way he is able to develop something of a post-mortem connection with his father. He is able to begin to see his life as more than his failure. It is in the journey that he finds the direction to return to life from the land of his own spiritual death. Often it is the journey that is the real destination of our lives.

This film comes out at a time when many people around the country are directly or indirectly taking care of strangers in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Evacuees have been placed around the country where churches, schools, and communities have opened their arms in welcome. Work is already beginning on new homes through Habitat for Humanity. Churches around the country will be sending work groups to help rebuild homes, churches and lives in East Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. All this is more evidence that we can live up to the call that we are given to care for our neighbor.

Crowe’s films have a hopeful quality that suggests an optimistic view of the world. Many of us are cynical about the idea that people will come to the aid of strangers. We often think that people really only care about themselves. In Elizabethtown Crowe offers us a view (confirmed by the responses to the hurricanes) that people really do want to help the stranger in our midst. It is through the care we give to strangers (and that strangers give to us) that we become strangers no more.