How Cameron Crowe’s Sleeper Hit Helped Me Cope With Grief

Published Sep 2, 2026, 5:08 AM EDT Julio is a Senior Author for Collider. He studied History and International Relations at university, but found his calling in cultural journalism. When he isn't writing, Julio also teaches English at a nearby school. He has lived in São Paulo most of his life, where he covers CCXP and other big events. Having loved movies, music, and TV from an early age, he prides himself in knowing every minute detail about the things he loves. When he is older, he dreams of owning a movie theater in a small countryside town. Grief is one of the essential human experiences, and so, it will always be one of the main themes within every kind of art. But it's funny how, sometimes, it's the work you least expect that comforts you the most. In my case, it's Elizabethtown. As a huge Cameron Crowe fan, I recognize that it's deeply flawed and far from his best work, but different movies mean different things to different people at different moments, and Elizabethtown has been helping me cope with my father's recent death in unexpected ways. Crowe has a knack for making cozy movies, and, while this particular one is most famous as a romantic comedy, it also perfectly captures the chaos of grief one endures as part of a dysfunctional family, something I wholeheartedly identify with. More Than a Romantic Comedy, ‘Elizabethtown’ Is a Meditation on Grieving Image via Paramount Pictures The first thing I've realized about movies since my father passed away is that seeing yourself in a story is a great source of comfort. You might have a favorite character, for example, but truly identifying with one who is going through the same thing as you is something else; it's proof that someone else has experienced this before. And, regardless of how much Cameron Crowe actually poured of himself into Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), our experiences are very similar — minus Kirsten Dunst, of course. Seeing how grieving is a universal experience, we might think that all grieving people (both real and fictional) are the same, but no. What Elizabethtown captures so well is how unique everyone's grief is. Drew has his own personal issues — including making mistakes at his job as a shoe designer that end up costing his employer hundreds of millions of dollars — but accepts the "mission" to Elizabethtown to pick up his father's remains after his passing to spare his sister and their mother from more suffering. Arriving in Kentucky, however, he learns that he will have to juggle a thousand different expectations and limitations concerning the memorial services, as well as his family's eccentricities. Like Drew, I am also "the oldest" and "reasonable one," as his sister puts it, which, in more practical terms, means I'm responsible for shouldering these burdens myself. Things are rarely that simple, though, and what Elizabethtown helped me realize about this is that coping with my own grief is already too much, but coping with everyone else's, too, is just impossible. Unlike Drew, no one in the real world has a manic pixie dream girl to help deal with this, so, the key is therapy — lots of it, and for everyone involved, preferably. ‘Elizabethtown’ Illustrates the Overwhelming Quality of Grief and Personal Failure Image via Paramount Pictures Another terrible thing about grieving is that the world won't wait for you; life doesn't stop while you're suffering. It's unfair, really, and it's another thing that Elizabethtown nails in its portrayal of the grieving process. Drew hasn't lost only his father, but his job and his girlfriend, too, thanks to the "fiasco" sneaker he designed. Loss and failure often strike at the worst times, making it feel like they are one and the same as you struggle to make sense of what's what, a feeling aggravated by seeing your immediate family unraveling with grief. The Baylors see Drew as an example of success, but he's about to become the ultimate underachiever. That's precisely how yours truly is seen in his family, thanks to overwhelmingly unreal expectations fostered since the cradle. Grief only amplifies this sense of personal failure, as Elizabethtown illustrates, and is bound to send anyone's self-worth to all-time lows. When you're the one expected to take the lead, this adds even more to the unnecessary confrontations that juggling multiple responsibilities might lead to. As clear-headed as you may be, it's impossible to keep clarity of thought in the eye of the storm. The good news is that there will always be a few people to help in that sense, as long as you reach out and keep things in the clear. Seeing the Kentucky Baylors agree to Drew's father's cremation felt almost wholesome, for example. With everything happening at once, we barely get the time and room to fully understand what we're going through, and that's okay. But you have to reach out. ‘Elizabethtown’ Is Also About Grieving What Could Have Been Drew's father was universally loved, whereas my own was a rather controversial figure, so to speak, so it has always been difficult to accommodate him in my mind. He had plenty of failures, too, and his death made those feel like my own, because, now, there is no time to fix anything anymore. Like Drew and his father, it had been years since I last saw mine, which adds its own particular weight to the pain, as well as some of the hardest-hitting what-ifs you can imagine. We never know when someone's time is up, so we tend to keep putting off certain things, both good and bad, because we believe there's still time. In Elizabethtown, Drew eventually understands that what he really missed out on was his father, just like me. My dad died young, so we never had the time to reconcile, even if it wasn't all reconcilable. But what if we could have set that aside for a second and, who knows, watched one last football match together? Or even had one final argument about politics? In the end, Drew gets his closure by taking his father (even if only his ashes) on the road trip he kept postponing. I can't have one of those (maybe one day). But Elizabethtown really helped me understand that what we can do once the worst happens is put our own histories into perspective and learn from it, because we'll all carry those feelings forever. Before losing someone as close as him, I thought all this wouldn't matter that much. Now I think about this every day as I take one day at a time.​​​​​​ Elizabethtown is available to stream via digital rental or purchase on Apple TV and Prime Video.