But with the clock ticking on her impending nuptials to another man, Melanie stomps back to 'Bama to end the damn thing once and for all, and it's here, back in the Deep South, that both Melanie and the film spring to life. She hasn't much looked back, except for the divorce papers she air-mails Jake at regular intervals, divorce papers he just as regularly refuses to sign. Problem is, she didn't just flee podunk Pigeon Creek, or her real roots - redneck parents, a childhood (trailer) home, and the unfortunate surname of “Smooter.” She also fled a husband, Jake (Lucas), who Melanie married right out of high school and shortly thereafter ditched for the big city.
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Melanie says yes, with reservations: She has some unfinished business back home in Alabama, a place she left seven years prior with all the reluctance of a death row inmate narrowly escaping the noose. Melanie has also landed a marriage proposal from Andrew (Dempsey), a well connected, expertly coifed (think JFK Jr.) politician and son of New York's mayor (Bergen). The romantic comedy opens with the successful New York launch of the new fall line from Melanie Carmichael (Witherspoon), a transplanted Southern belle touted as the next big thing in the capital of haute couture. But not inappropriate, because that confusion - over where exactly home is - is the biggest stumbling block to the soul of the film. Sweet Home Alabama hooks itself on the idea of geographical ambivalence - ironic then, that the film was mostly shot in stand-in (Sweet Home) Georgia.