Elizabethtown, written and directed by ex Rolling Stones writer turned film maker Cameron Crowe, is liberally doused in music. Annoyingly, it's an example of a soundtrack that has to leave as much off as put in, although there are still highlights on the disc. The film itself, overlong, soppy, and a bit of a muddle, still has scenes that can delight, with my personal favourite being the Freebird moment, as well as the idea of a special someone taking the time to put together a soundtrack for you to listen to on a roadtrip (although I'd like to see what she could have knocked together for a 12 hour bus trip through the Chilean desert).
Of all the reasons you could put forward for the film being unrealistic, surely the main one would be the fact that it would never be the girl that makes the boy the Cd's to listen to in the car, it would be the other way round. The boy, let's call him Kevin T (purely for argument's sake) would spend hours constructing a compilation of perfect symmetry, that contained a mix of both the known and unknown, a delicate fusion of genres, held together beautifully by a running order that simply could not be improved. Girls, it has to be said, don't do this. In defence of girls, the only artice I ever read that articulated the great art of a compilation was written by Laura Barton in The Guardian. The advent of CD's robbed the master compilation makers of the 'Track One Side Two' conundrum, which if I'm honest, I miss.
My final destination for this post is my favourite track from the Elizabethtown soundtrack, 'Don't I Hold You' by Wheat, about who I know nothing apart from the fact that they are from Boston.
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