If you are like most people and have never seen a miracle, see Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama. She turns a predictable chic flick into something actually entertaining. .
Witherspoon plays New York fashion designer Melanie Carmichael, who escapes the traditional country life of her hometown in Alabama. She has got it all a great career, friends, and hot boyfriend. When her big city sweetheart, Andrew, played by Patrick Dempsey, proposes to her in the middle of Tiffany's, she can't help but say yes. Unfortunately, it's all a little too good to be true. She has to revisit her past in order to divorce her childhood sweetheart, Jake, played by Josh Lucas.
Jake is not at all eager to sign the divorce papers, that Melanie shows up with after being gone for some seven years. His goal is to win her back. He holds a secret throughout the movie, which keeps Mel and the audience wondering.
The movie is amusing in some parts; her fiancé's mother is Candice Bergen, the mayor of New York and is anything but enthusiastic about her son's choice to marry Mel. Bergen is the over-protective mother, stuck up and snooty. The country way of life, filled with civil war re-enactments and double wide trailers nudges smiles and a few laughs from the audience. The movies humor is based on stereotypes of the two regions of the country. Her momma makes the best jam in three counties and her friends from New York include, the African American gay male and British female.
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There's no real mystery as to which love she will choose, the title even gives it away. She gives up the fast paced New York City life, career and success, all that she has worked for and all she struggled to become for love, family and the life she ran from. The movie does not answer this question or make the scenario seem at all believable; if Melanie had been gone for seven years and achieved so much how could she so quickly give it all up.
