If, while watching “Sweet Home Alabama,” you get a distinct feeling of deja vu, don’t worry because you’re not alone. You probably have already seen this movie, just under a different title.

 

This year’s most recent romantic comedy features Reese Witherspoon (“Legally Blonde”) as Melanie, New York’s hottest fashion designer who finds herself engaged to New York’s most eligible bachelor and the mayor’s son. The only thing that can harm her future is what lies in the past. Melanie is still married to her childhood sweetheart, Jake (Josh Lucas, “A Beautiful Mind”). Melanie must go home to Alabama, get her divorce papers signed, and confront a past she had forgotten.

 

Reese Witherspoon does a great job playing the down home girl turned snotty New Yorker, while her two guys, Josh Lucas and Patrick Dempsey, well they were worth the admission price alone. Who wouldn’t want to spend an evening with these hotties? The supporting cast of family, friends and hillbillies (there’s even a Barney Fife deputy) are one of the more enjoyable elements of the film.

 

Veteran actress Mary Kay Place (“Girl, Interrupted”) plays Pearl, Melanie’s mother who always regrets staying in their small town. She is offset by Fred Ward (“The Player,”) who plays her husband Earl, together they do a brilliant job of reacting to seeing their daughter and what she has become since she left home. The most notable performance came from Candace Bergen (“Miss Congeniality”) as the mayor of New York, and future mother-in-law of Melanie. She is given some of the funniest lines of the movie.

 

The script is well written and witty, the cleaver banter that occurs between Jake and Melanie is reminiscent of Carey Grant and Kathryn Hepburn in “Philadelphia Story.” It is obvious that original screenplay writer Douglas J. Elock, who wrote this as his masters thesis for the University of Southern California, drew upon his own experience of growing up in a small town to create Melanie’s love/hate relationship with her “small pond”.

 

While director Andy Tennant is known for his elaborate romantic remakes, the Cinderella remake “Ever After” (Drew Barrymore) and “The King and I” was adapted into the Oscar nominated Anna and the King (Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat), he is soon to be known for his direction of the most romantic proposal, at least for this year. The Tiffany Co. has put itself in the books for the new place for guys to propose, just make sure you can afford the ring!

 

This movie was very enjoyable. My only complaint is that it seems to be the same story we have all seen 100 times. Small mouse goes to the city to become a success, only to realize that what she was searching for was at home the whole time. Please, future screenwriters out there, spice it up. Surprise me.

 

One piece of advice to the ladies out there, don’t see this movie on a date. I guarantee that you will not be thinking of that guy on your arm, you will have your mind on one thing: The Ex. You know, the one that got away. Do yourself a favor, see it with a girlpal (you will want to be able to swoon every time Josh Lucas comes on the screen), and throw away that ex’s number… in the big trashcan.