Elizabethtown

(Herald rating *)

Stop reading now if, like the two young women in the next row, the sight of one Orlando Bloom tends to bring you in sighs and simpers.

Because if there's one thing that Elizabethtown finally proves about the devilishly ... um, elvishly handsome young star it's that he can't act. There is many a scene in Elizabethtown where it's tempting to to shout "cut, once more with feeling" at Bloom struggling in his first contemporary American role.

As bad as he is, he's not the worst thing about Elizabethtown. That would be the film itself, an incohesive over-long uneven non-event that just feels wrong-headed in every department except its soundtrack.

Director-writer Cameron Crowe is usually reliable when he's getting guys to fall in love with gals that will save them from themselves (Say Anything, Jerry Maguire) or going autobiographical (Almost Famous, inspired by his time as a Rolling Stone cub reporter).

Here it's a bit of both - it's loosely based on the death of his father in 1989. Bloom is the Crowe character, Drew a guy who, having just suffered a disastrous turn in his career and contemplating suicide, gets a phone call to say his father has died.

At the behest of his mother (Sarandon), he has to travel from Oregon to his birthplace of the title to look after the funeral arrangements.

On the plane he encounters Claire (Dunst), a flight attendant who is a bubbling fountain of homespun advice.

Knowing the area well, she offers directions and her phone number, which of course, comes in handy when Drew can no longer face his well-meaning relatives who have already all but arranged the funeral before Drew's mother and sister (Greer) turn up. When they do, the memorial service scene which has Sarandon mixing stand-up comedy and tap-dance is the most excruciating few minutes of the movie's torturing two hours plus.

Through it all, Drew thinks he should be feeling something more about the death of his father - although he wasn't particularly close to him - and why he's more upset about being fired from his job as shoe designer (a thinly disguised satire on the Nike corporation) after his latest creation was a multimillion-dollar flop.

Both that sense of spectacular failure and that numbness of feeling just translates into a severe lack of emotional engagement.

There's barely any sense of romance either - while Dunst's Claire all but gives off sparks, they are extinguished by Bloom's damp dullness.

Still, Bloom fans still get a big dose of heartthrob. Followers of vintage Crowe, however, will come away wondering if they've still got a pulse.

CAST: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Judy Greer
DIRECTOR: Cameron Crowe
RATING: M
RUNNING TIME: 123 mins
SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley