What is it about people being left at the altar or weddings breaking up at the most painful or embarrassing moment that appeals to the producers of romantic comedies. Is there something in these events that is meant to create the perfect date movie ambiance by either discouraging thoughts of commitment or wedlock that have been causing troublesome silences in a relationship? Maybe the thought is that modern relationships are so weak that you have to find the most hideous thing you can to allow both parts of a couple to laugh at the misfortune of others? Or possibly it is just the bitterness of producers with many an ugly relationship break up showing through.
For whatever reason such wedding wrecking has provided the climax to Four Weddings And A Funeral, a couple of bodged plot points in Serendipity, not to mention the entire concepts of My Best Friends Wedding and Runaway Bride. Therefore it comes as no surprise that a film that plays it as safe as Sweet Home Alabama does manages to incorporate this old chestnut into the plot.
Reese Witherspoon stars as an up and coming fashion designer who is about to marry the son of the mayor of New York and if all things go to plan she will be first lady of the USA in no time. The only snag is that her childhood sweetheart cum estranged husband is refusing to sign the divorce papers for the seventh year in a row. So our heroine has to head back to her yokel friends and family in Alabama to set things right.
To lazily call this film the worst thing that Reese Witherspoon has ever done would be harsh. Calling it as bad as The Importance Of Being Earnest and hence the joint worst thing she's ever done is far more accurate. The whole film seems like a cynical exercise to show off how good it's leading lady looks in a variety of posh clothes and how well she can do different accents. As such it is less than a tenth as funny as Legally Blonde.
The high amiable fluff quotient, enough to keep a pillow factory going for years by my reckoning, would be more bearable if the film didn't spend the first half making cheap cracks about folk in the deep south before spending the second half making a grovelling apology to portraying them in this way. Without the courage of it's convictions or a decent script there is little bar the star's charm to recommend this. But since showing off the star is what this film is all about this probably counts as a success.