Sweet Home Alabama (film)

Plot

On a beach in Pigeon Creek, Alabama, 10-year-olds Jake Perry and Melanie Smooter inspect the result of lightning striking sand. Jake asserts that they will be married one day.

In the present, Melanie is a New York fashion designer who has adopted the surname "Carmichael" to hide her poor Southern roots. After wealthy Andrew Hennings proposes, Melanie returns to her hometown to Pigeon Creek, Alabama, to announce her engagement to her parents Earl and Pearl Smooter and to divorce her estranged husband Jake, whom she married as a pregnant teenager and left after she miscarried their baby. Meanwhile, Kate Hennings, Andrew's mother and the Mayor of New York City, doubts Melanie's suitability for her son, whom she is grooming to run for President of the United States.

Melanie visits Jake, who has refused to sign divorce papers over the years since she left for New York. After he orders her out of the house, Melanie empties Jake's checking account, hoping to spur him into ending the marriage. Angry, Jake leaves to meet friends at the local bar. Melanie follows and gets drunk, insults her old schoolmates, and outs her longtime friend, Bobby Ray. Jake scolds her and takes her home, preventing her from driving drunk, and Melanie wakes to find the signed divorce papers on her bed.

Melanie goes to the Carmichael plantation and apologizes to Bobby Ray, whose family lives there. She is cornered there by Kate's assistant Barry Lowenstein, who is sent to gather information on Melanie's background, posing as a reporter for the New York Post. Bobby Ray backs up her pretense that she is a relative and the family mansion is her childhood home. Melanie reconciles with her friends and learns that after she split with Jake, he followed her to New York to win her back. Intimidated by the city and her success, he returned home to make something of himself first. She and Jake have a heart-to-heart, and Melanie realizes why he never signed their divorce papers.

Andrew arrives to surprise Melanie, but upon discovering her true background and that she is married, he angrily leaves. He later returns, saying he still wants to marry her, and the wedding is set into motion. Melanie's New York friends arrive. While visiting a restaurant/resort with a glassblowing gallery, they admire its glass sculptures. Melanie realizes that Jake is the artist and owns the resort.

During Melanie and Andrew's wedding at the Carmichael estate, Wallace Buford, Melanie's attorney, interrupts the ceremony. He has the divorce papers, which Melanie hadn't signed. As Melanie is about to do so, she realizes that her love for Jake is still there. She tells Andrew that she gave her heart to Jake and never got it back. She and Andrew wish each other well; Kate then berates Melanie and insults her mother, for which Melanie punches her. Before running off to find Jake, she tells everyone who is a "friend of the bride" to stick around.

Melanie finds Jake at the beach planting lightning rods in the sand to create more glass sculptures. She tells him they are still married, and they return to the bar for their wedding reception, where they have their first dance as husband and wife.

A mid-credits sequence shows that they have a baby daughter, Melanie continues to thrive as a designer, and Jake opens a "Deep South Glass" franchise in New York. Andrew is engaged to Melanie's friend, Erin Vanderbilt.

Cast

• Reese Witherspoon as Melanie Carmichael (née Smooter)
  • Dakota Fanning as young Melanie
• Josh Lucas as Jake Perry
  • Thomas Curtis as young Jake
• Patrick Dempsey as Andrew Hennings
• Fred Ward as Earl Smooter
• Mary Kay Place as Pearl Smooter
• Jean Smart as Stella Kay Perry
• Ethan Embry as Bobby Ray Bailey
• Melanie Lynskey as Lurlynn
• Courtney Gains as Sheriff Wade
• Mary Lynn Rajskub as Dorothea
• Rhona Mitra as Tabatha Wadmore-Smith
• Nathan Lee Graham as Frederick Montana
• Candice Bergen as Kate Hennings
• Kevin Sussman as Barry Lowenstein
• Katharine Towne as Erin Vanderbilt

Release

Critical response

This film received mostly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a critical score of 38% based on 160 reviews, with an average rating of 5.19/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Reese Witherspoon is charming enough, but the road to Alabama is well-traveled." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert, critic for the Chicago Sun Times, awarded it three out of four stars, commenting, "It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day would have been in this role... So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise." Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic said, "Using her blond, blue-eyed pout to full advantage, Witherspoon is just as likable as a Southern belle as she was as a California sorority girl in Legally Blonde." Andrew Sarris, critic for the New York Observer, said that the movie "Would be an unendurable viewing experience for this ultra-provincial New Yorker if 26-year-old Reese Witherspoon were not on hand to inject her pure fantasy character, Melanie Carmichael, with a massive infusion of old-fashioned Hollywood magic."

Box office performance

The film grossed over US$35 million in its first weekend, ranking number one at the box office, beating The Tuxedo and Barbershop. At the time, it had the highest September opening weekend, surpassing Rush Hour. For a decade, the film would hold this record until 2012 when Hotel Transylvania took it. Despite getting dethroned by Red Dragon, it still made $21.3 million during its second weekend. By the end of its run in the United States, Sweet Home Alabama grossed over US$130 million, and another US$53,399,006 internationally. With a reported budget of US$30 million, it was a box office hit, despite the mixed reviews.

Home media

Sweet Home Alabama was released on VHS and DVD on February 4, 2003, it was released on Blu-ray on November 6, 2012, as part of its 10th anniversary. It sold 2 million DVD copies on its first day of release, and sold 7.40 million copies earning a profit of over 128.7 million dollars.

Awards and accolades

Soundtrack

Sweet Home Alabama (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), the film soundtrack, includes thirteen songs by different artists.

References

References

1. "Sweet Home Alabama (2002)". [[Fandango Media.
2. "Sweet Home Alabama Reviews". [[CBS Interactive]].
3. "Find CinemaScore". [[CinemaScore]].
4. Ebert, Roger. (September 27, 2002). "Sweet Home Alabama". RogerEbert.com.
5. Muller, Bill. (September 27, 2002). "Ain't she 'sweet'". [[The Arizona Republic]].
6. (February 12, 2007). "Review: Sweet Home Alabama".
7. Linder, Brian. (October 1, 2002). "Weekend Box Office: Home Sweet Home".
8. (October 1, 2002). "Moviegoers Make It a 'Sweet' September".
9. D'Alessandro, Anthony. (September 28, 2015). "''Hotel Transylvania 2'' At $48.5M Marks Record Opening For Adam Sandler; 'Intern' Slacks On Sunday – Monday Postmortem". ([[Penske Media Corporation]]).
10. (5 October 2002). "Red Dragon breaks Oct opening record with $37.5m".
11. "Sweet Home Alabama (2002)". [[Box Office Mojo]].
12. https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Home-Alabama-Anniversary-Blu-ray/dp/B008U19P2K
13. Hettrick, Scott. (February 6, 2003). "'Sweet' release on DVD". [[Variety (magazine).
14. (December 30, 2003). "Year End 2003 Top-selling titles (combined VHS and DVD)". Variety.
15. (June 7, 2014). "2003 Teen Choice Winners Announced".
16. (June 18, 2003). "2003 Teen Choice Awards Nominees".
17. (January 2002). "Various - Sweet Home Alabama (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) on Apple Music". [[iTunes]].