Sweet Home Alabama (film)

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This article is about the film. For the song, see Sweet Home Alabama.
Sweet Home Alabama
Directed by Andy Tennant
Produced by David Brown
Michael Tolkin
Written by Screenplay
C. Jay Cox
Story
Douglas J. Eboch
Starring Reese Witherspoon
Josh Lucas
Patrick Dempsey
Candice Bergen
Mary Kay Place
Fred Ward
Ethan Embry
Melanie Lynskey
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Jean Smart
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s) September 27, 2002
Running time 109 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget US$38,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue $180,622,424 (worldwide)

Sweet Home Alabama is a 2002 romantic comedy film directed by Andy Tennant and stars Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, and Patrick Dempsey. The film was released on September 27, 2002.

Contents

[edit] Plot

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.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

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.

[edit] Reception

[edit] 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]

[edit] 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]

[edit] Awards

The film also won the following awards:

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Sweet Home Alabama (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sweet_home_alabama/. Retrieved September 19, 2009. 
  2. ^ "Sweet Home Alabama (2002)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=sweethomealabama.htm. Retrieved September 19, 2009. 

[edit] External links

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sweet Home Alabama
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Films directed by Andy Tennant

It Takes Two (1995) · Fools Rush In (1997) · Ever After (1998) · Anna and the King (1999) · Sweet Home Alabama (2002) · Hitch (2005) · Fool's Gold (2008)
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