THEY might be the darlings of Hollywood's young set but Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst fail to sparkle in this cheese-ball flick.

Bloom is particularly unsavoury, as Drew Baylor, a shoe designer who loses his firm a billion dollars and decides the easiest way out of the mess is to impale himself on nasty, great knife.

Drew is such a spineless, snivelling, little weasel of a man that I actually felt disappointed when the suicide bid is foiled by a call from his sister.

The news is that their father has died while visiting his family in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Drew will need to fly out alone to bring home the body.

Even this seems like too much effort for Drew, who is far too busy wallowing in his own self-pity.

But he goes anyway and in-flight he meets stewardess Claire Colburn (Dunst) who expresses a profound interest in Drew, while he is seemingly irritated by her.

Through the rest of the film, as Drew wades through the minefield of unknown family members in small-town Kentucky, Claire sporadically pops up to offer her pearls of cutesy wisdom.

If the audience is meant to feel all warm and tingly by this, then director Cameron Crowe is sorely mistaken. I was just left feeling like I needed to reach for a bucket.

Way too long when the characters are so unlikeable, the only tears I felt like shedding were those of joy when this film ended.

EB