Sweet Home Alabama (film)

Sweet Home Alabama is a 2002 American romantic comedy film directed by Andy Tennant and starring Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey and Candice Bergen. The film was released by Touchstone Pictures on September 27, 2002. The film takes its title from the Lynyrd Skynyrd song of the same name.

Plot
On an Alabama beach, 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 day, Melanie is a successful fashion designer who has adopted the surname "Carmichael" to hide her poor Southern roots. After wealthy Andrew Hennings proposes, Melanie returns to Alabama to announce her engagement to her parents and finalize a divorce from her estranged husband, Jake. Meanwhile, Kate Hennings, Andrew's mother and the Mayor of New York City, doubts Melanie's suitability as to wed her son, whom she is grooming to run for President of the United States.

Melanie visits Jake, who has avoided signing the divorce papers. After Jake orders Melanie out of his house, Melanie empties Jake's checking account, hoping to spur him into ending the marriage. Jake finally relents and agrees to the divorce and promises to return the signed papers the next morning. Later, at a local bar, Melanie gets drunk, insults her old school friends, and outs her old childhood pal, Bobby Ray Bailey. The next morning, Melanie finds the signed document on her bed.

Melanie goes to the Carmichael plantation and apologizes to Bobby Ray. She is cornered there by Kate's assistant, sent there to gather information on Melanie's background. 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 had 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 talk, and Melanie understands why he never signed their divorce papers.

Andrew arrives to surprise Melanie, but upon learning her true background and that Jake was her husband, he angrily leaves. He later returns, saying he still wants to marry Melanie, and the wedding is immediately set in motion. Melanie's New York friends arrive for the event. While visiting a nearby restaurant/resort with a glassblowing gallery, they admire the glass sculptures that are similar to ones they have seen in New York. Melanie realizes Jake is the artist and he owns the resort.

During Melanie and Andrew's wedding at the Carmichael estate, a lawyer arrives and halts the ceremony. He has the divorce papers, which Melanie has never signed. Melanie realizes she still loves Jake and cancels the wedding. She and Andrew wish each other well, though Kate berates Andrew and insults Melanie, her family, and the entire town, for which Melanie punches her in the jaw. Melanie finds Jake at the beach planting lightning rods in the sand during a rainstorm to create more glass sculptures. She says they are still married. They return to what would have been Melanie and Andrew's reception, and finally 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 a girl named Erin Vanderbilt.

Cast

 * Reese Witherspoon as Melanie Carmichael
 * Dakota Fanning as Young Melanie Carmichael
 * Josh Lucas as Jake Perry
 * Thomas Curtis as Young Jake Perry
 * Patrick Dempsey as Andrew Hennings
 * Candice Bergen as Mayor Kate Hennings
 * Mary Kay Place as Pearl Smooter
 * Fred Ward as Earl Smooter
 * Jean Smart as Stella Kay Perry
 * Ethan Embry as Bobby Ray
 * 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
 * Sean Bridgers as Eldon
 * Fleet Cooper as Clinton
 * Kevin Sussman as Barry Lowenstein
 * Mark Skinner as Bruno
 * Michelle Krusiec as Pan
 * Phil Cater as Pablo
 * Michael Snow as Devin
 * Bob Penny as Wallace Buford
 * Mark Matkevich as Tom Darovsic
 * Lee Roy Giles as Eugene the Guard
 * Afemo Omilami as Jimmy Lee
 * Kevin Hagan as Jimmy the Driver
 * Dennis Ryan as Reporter
 * Jim O'Connor as Reporter
 * Leslie Hendrix as Reporter
 * Mark Oliver as Guard #2
 * Colin Ford as Clinton Jr. (uncredited)
 * Jason Guy as Photographer at the Red Carpet (uncredited)
 * Andrew Prine as Sheriff Holt (uncredited)

Casting
Charlize Theron was considered for the lead role before Reese Witherspoon was cast.

Katherine Towne was cast as Witherspoon's character's assistant who ultimately ends up marrying the Patrick Dempsey character, but all other scenes were dropped in the final cut.

Filming
Although centered in a fictional version of the town of Pigeon Creek, near a fictional version of Greenville, Alabama, the film was mostly shot in Georgia. The Carmichael Plantation, which Melanie tells the reporter is her childhood home, is the Oak Hill Berry Museum, a historic landmark in Georgia which is on the campus of Berry College in Rome, Georgia.

Sweet Home Alabama was the first film allowed to shoot in New York City after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was also the first film ever allowed to film in Tiffany’s since Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961.

The streets and storefronts of Crawfordville, Georgia were used as the backdrop for the Catfish Festival and other downtown scenes. The coonhound cemetery was on Moore Street in Crawfordville and the bar was located at Heavy's Barbecue near the town. Glass that forms when lightning hits sand, as in the film, is called fulgurite.

Jake's glassblowing shop was filmed at an old mill named Starr's Mill, in Fayette County, Georgia. Wynn's Pond in Sharpsburg, Georgia is the location where Jake lands his plane. The historic homes shown at Melanie's return to Pigeon Creek were shot in Eufaula, Alabama.

The film title and theme song lyrics are from the "Sweet Home Alabama" song by Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, that first appeared in 1974 on their second album, Second Helping.

Critical response
This film received mostly mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, 38% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 159 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".

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."

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. 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.

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