9 Great Directors Who Could Really Use A Career Boost

2) Cameron Crowe

Even if he never makes a film as good as Jerry Maguire, Say Anything… or Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s screenplays will continue to be revered by moviegoers and studied by anyone who ever wanted to write scripts. The director’s films have a Capra-esque idealism and protagonists who are such shameless romantics that their optimistic outlooks are easy for an audience to fall for. Sure, you can mock the romantic “You had me at hello!” climax from Jerry Maguire, but the scene was certainly powerful back in 1996. His sunny comedies are not reckless but reasonable, and it is easy to see why so many revisit his great romances.

However, the first half of Crowe’s career set a standard that he has not been able to replicate since his rock-and-roll opus came out in 2000. Elizabethtown and We Bought a Zoo, his two most recent romantic dramas, were lesser works that followed with the schematic of Jerry Maguire – a successful man takes on a more modest endeavor and finds out that people matter more than privilege – but were missing the poignancy, the spark and the wit of Crowe’s former works.

Elizabethtown is a fine screenplay let down by miscasting (Orlando Bloom simply did not have what it took to be a formidable leading man). Crowe’s idol, the great Billy Wilder, would never have made a film half as mawkish as We Bought a Zoo. Furthermore, his departure into abstract psychological drama, Vanilla Sky, is an interesting watch as much as it is a fascinating failure.

Crowe has good intentions and he writes endearing leading men finer than most working screenwriters. His love for rock music still remains, as recent documentaries Pearl Jam Twenty and The Union have small but fervent fan followings. While his fictional characters of late lack the romantic weight and wit of his earlier creations, there is still hope: Crowe is finishing up an untitled Hawaii-set comedy with Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Bill Murray and Rachel McAdams, set for release on May 29, 2015. With a cast that fine and infallible producer Scott Rudin on board, perhaps it is the comeback vehicle that can refresh Crowe’s legacy.