Sweet Home Alabama

Melanie is a young woman who has become a successful New Yorker by working her way to the top in the fashion industry. However, Melanie is formerly from small-town Alabama and, thanks in part to her mother, has become ashamed of her past, especially of her small-town, working class roots.As an up-and-coming fashion designer, Melanie is pleased to mix exclusively with many of the highest of New York society, including the wealthy, influential lady mayor and her son. These people know nothing of Melanie’s real past, for, in order to impress them, she has concocted a fantasy past for herself. Therefore, as far as the mayor and her son are concerned, far from having a working-class background, Melanie is the daughter of a rich, southern plantation owner. However, like so many chickens coming home to roost, Melanie’s lies become a problem when the mayor’s son suddenly proposes marriage - a proposal which Melanie accepts, even though she is already married……..Having been put on the spot by her new fiancé, Melanie must return to her hometown to clear up some unfinished business. This includes finalising her divorce. Once there, she makes no effort to fit in. In fact, she does quite the opposite. Behaving like Lady Muck, she finally goes too far, openly sneering at and deriding her former friends for being losers, for being country yokels. She, after all, is a New York sophisticate, while the height of their petty ambitions is to remain in Alabama living out their pitiful little southern lives etc, etc. Melanie adopts this same attitude towards her parents, thus making her temporary homecoming even more difficult.At this point in the film, there are many questions to be answered. For example, will Melanie’s lies be exposed? Will these lies derail her future with the mayor’s son? Will Melanie get her divorce, especially since her husband is reluctant to sign the divorce papers? Will Melanie make peace with her past, and vice versa i.e. will her parents and the townsfolk forgive her appalling behaviour and make their peace with her? Will there be a happy, satisfying ending?The answers to the above questions will, of course, be supplied by the film.As to my personal response to the film, I have never seen a Reece Witherspoon film before which was, in part, my reason for watching this one. I did find the story slow in the beginning and found Melanie a difficult character to like. This was because of her aggressive and uncompromising behaviour towards her parents and her husband, her husband behaving likewise towards her. Some of this was meant to be funny, but it wasn’t. However, Candice Bergen as the snooty lady mayor was what turned the whole film around for me. Here she plays a similar character to her role in Miss Congeniality, and as such she had some funny one-liners e.g. referring to Miss Carmichael (Melanie) as “Miss Carbuncle”. I also particularly liked the swimming dog, a bloodhound, whose name I cannot now remember.In the end, then, I did take to the film. There were some very funny, laugh-out-loud moments, particularly the scene with the Confederate “ghost”. I am still not a Reece Witherspoon fan, but on the basis of this film, I will give more of her work a go.Of course, the acting, camerawork etc. are only part of the film. All films, intentionally or otherwise, raise issues to think about, as did this film. Here, the specific issue is lying, particularly lying, or making up stories, about one’s life. Everybody lies. At the simplest of levels, how many times have you met an acquaintance in the street and, even though for some reason you are feeling miserable, you reply ”Very well, thank you” when your acquaintance asks how you are. I have certainly done this. However, that is not the degree of lying that we see in this film.In this film, the main character lies about her life. I have known many people who have also lied in this way. One of these was a former colleague.At the time I knew her, we both lived in a very scenic part of the country. It is the sort of place where rich city folks buy up quaint little country cottages to use as holiday homes (thus pricing most of the rest of the local population out of the property market). My colleague lived in one of these highly sought-after properties (it was her only home, however). And it played a major role in the lies she created about her lifestyle.As well as lying about her life when talking to her friends and other colleagues, my colleague reached a wider audience by publishing an internet blog. Specifically, this was a photo blog in which bloggers could publish captioned photographs. In it, my colleague published many photos of her cottage and garden, as well as the very scenic views from its windows. She also published photos of many of her friends engaged in a variety of activities at their houses or at hers. So, she published photos of dinner parties, of Christmas celebrations, of the book group etc, etc. She also published photos of occasions when she participated in the local cultural life and its traditions. By all accounts, then, she had many friends and enjoyed a rich and varied social life. And as if that weren’t enough, she also lived in a perfect cottage in a perfect location with perfect views etc, etc. Doesn’t that just make you jealous?By her own lights, then, my colleague led an idyllic life. That said, there is a saying, a wisdom, that people today are fast forgetting: Never judge a book by its cover.The cover of a book tells you little about its contents. It merely contains advertising. Moreover, it is a ruse intended to persuade you to buy the book. Likewise, my former colleague’s claims about her idyllic life (and likewise Melanie's claims in this film.) These claims were nothing more than advertising. To discover the truth behind any advertising, one must ignore it and look instead at the person. Thus, when I ignored my colleague's advertising and looked at her instead, I observed that her life was far from idyllic. And, moreover, instead of improving, its quality was rapidly deteriorating.Firstly, while she may once have had a wide circle of friends, that circle dwindled with every passing year until one could count the members of this circle on the fingers of one hand. Also, shortly before I moved away from the area, I was surprised to observe that such of her friends as remained were somewhat older than she was. Of course, this reduction in their number was largely caused by her own behaviour. For example, she domineered every group of people she encountered, both socially and at work. She had to be the centre of attention. No one else was allowed to get a word in edgeways. In addition, because she was in a rut, because neither she nor her friends did anything different from what they had always done e.g. they never read a different type of book from those they had always read in their book club, then they had no conversation. So, having heard the same tired, old anecdotes and the same tired, old jokes over many years, mixing with my colleague eventually became a dreary, boring affair. In addition, she spoiled her pet dog, often giving it preferential treatment over her human companions. This further alienated the people she knew.Secondly, while her circle of friends decreased, conversely, her intake of prescription drugs increased. In common with most people, age brought with it an increasing number of health worries which could only be kept at bay, but not cured, by these drugs.Thirdly, she had financial worries. My colleague could not manage her money. It slipped through her fingers like water. She took on many hours of extra work that she might both pay off her mortgage early and retire early. In fact, being unable to manage resources like money spread into other areas of her life. Her inability to manage her time means that retirement is unlikely to be the dream she had hoped it would be. In addition, of course, her house was not perfect and maintaining it was also a financial burden, this coupled with other anxieties created by a particular local difficulty, namely that it is more than usually difficult to find reliable tradesmen to carry out necessary repairs.Finally, while I could go on at great length about my former colleague’s far from idyllic life, I will mention just one more thing. Despite her best endeavours to impress her employer, she was consistently overlooked for promotion. This was a source of great resentment for her.So, a dwindling social circle, being stuck in an ever-deepening rut, bad social skills, bad money and time management, a disappointing career, health and financial anxieties. How can anyone claim that such a lifestyle is idyllic? Yet many people do claim to have perfect lives. You just have to listen to the radio or watch TV to observe people playing this same game. And one knows, of course, that their claims have no more substance than my colleague’s. However, what I have frequently wondered is to what extent my colleague knowingly lied about her lifestyle. Like Melanie in the film, did she know she was lying? Possibly she did know at first and then, when the lying became routine, she started to believe her own lies. That said, I think that my brother is no longer aware that he is lying.Upon speaking to my brother for the first time in many years, it became clear that he has replaced his contact lenses with a very large pair of rose-coloured glasses. For not only does my brother claim to have had a wonderful life, but, to my even greater surprise, he expressed regret that our parents had died before his own children had had a chance to “enjoy” them.Indeed, far from enjoying their grandfather, our father, it would likely have been the other way round. For example, my father was an extremely abusive husband. He himself was a well-off man, yet he treated his wife like a slave. She tried various means to seek solace from his relentless abuse e.g. drinking alcohol, but as soon as my father discovered whatever means she was using, he took it away from her. Among his many criticisms of our mother was that she was lazy, and that the food she put on our table was inedible “muck”. (Neither of these accusations was true. And while the food she put on the table was, of necessity, basic, it was, in fact, wholesome and very tasty.) Our father also abused his children. For example, he was a terrible tease. He loved nothing better than to make, and then break, promises to his children, delighting in our subsequent disappointment and, even better, our tears of distress. When my father was away on overnight business trips (actually, we subsequently learned that he spent most of these trips at a casino) I remember the relief that my mother and I felt knowing that we could enjoy an evening at home in relative freedom e.g. we could watch what we wanted on tv, instead of what my father dictated. However, this sense of relief evaporated the following night. As the evening wore on, so did our dread at the prospect of my father’s imminent return, my stomach always lurching upon seeing his car finally pull into the driveway.In addition to the reality of family life, I also know from my personal experience of the world of work, that my brother’s career was no garden of roses either. I wonder, has my brother forgotten that when he took a job in London, he could not cope with the vicious backstabbing that went on among his colleagues?So, my brother and my former colleague both created fantasy lives about themselves for so long that they have probably come to believe their own lies. One could say that they both succumbed to the increasingly prevalent practice of taking a positive attitude to life. This practice is particularly prevalent at the moment because people’s fears are being amplified by the current pandemic. Everyone is being positive. Radio presenters are being positive. TV personalities are being positive. Neighbours are being positive. Shop staff are being positive. And they are all lying both to themselves and to others.In fact, what they are really doing is burying their heads in the sand. They are experiencing problems and difficulties, while pretending that everything is hunky-dory. Life, however, is not hunky-dory. Life is full of problems, horrors even, that need solutions. And it is only by admitting to having problems, by looking life’s horrendous difficulties full in the face and admitting to them, that these problems can be dealt with. And, crucially, if these problems are not dealt with, then over time they will get much worse, to the deterioration of one's health.So, to conclude this review, Sweet Home Arizona is an enjoyable film that made me think. I give it 5 stars.

I love this witty film, brilliant one liners etc, excellent cast.

Spot on delivery and great DVD

entertainment

Josh Lucas and Reece Witherspoon - great film with talented actors and of course a romance thrown into the mix.

Old but corny and good

great film easy to watch.

although I liked this movie, if I had seen it on TV I would not find myself wanting to buy it on DVD. It is an easy to watch movie about high school sweethearts who separated for many years and upon reuniting for Reese character to get divorce papers signed, discover their love for each other once again. It is a nice simple storyline but not as many funny scenes as the trailers led me to believe. I am not disappointed from buying it but only because it was such a bargain otherwise would not recommend spending money on it personally.