Sweet Home Alabama Analysis

In the movie, Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie Carmichael, a woman in her early twenties moves away from her charming town of Greenville, AL to New York City to pursue her dream of being a fashion designer. She becomes very successful and one of the top designers in the city and is enjoying her life in New York until she finds herself engaged to one of the most eligible men in the city. She is then forced to return home to Greenville to tell her parents the news and obtain a divorce from her husband after seven years of separation. An analysis can be made of Melanie’s relationships with her fiancé, her husband, and the relationship between her parents and between her fiancé and his parents. Through this analysis, character development and relational …show more content…
Melanie and Jake had a tumultuous relationship. It is not because of their lack of love, but mostly because of lack of communication that their relationships had to face many challenges. As a couple, Melanie and Jake had a traditional relationship. Before Melanie left, they were stable, they had a house together, they were interdependent, they had a common bank account. They fit in with society and societal norms for a married couple. The two of them grew up together and therefore shared the same background and history. Melanie and Jake share a lot of similarities with their appearances which would further help with their attraction to one another. They were always in competition for power. Indeed, they both used tricks to get what they wanted. Jake used emotion: ”Nobody finds their soulmate when they are ten years old”, whereas Melanie used bold actions to get Jake’s attention. She emptied his bank account, moved furniture in his house, and followed him everywhere in an almost psychotic …show more content…
Both Melanie and Andrew’s family relationships are not completely ideal and have their ups and downs. Melanie and Andrew have natural families where both parents were involved in their lives. Also, both of them are the only children in their family. Melanie grew up in a small town where outside of her parents, the town was basically her family as well. In their small, quaint town of Greenville, AL, one does not have many secrets and every person wants to give Melanie their advice and “two cents” on what she should do with her life. This is what Melanie’s childhood and teenage years looked like up until she got pregnant out of wedlock, married, and then lost the baby. After the loss of their baby, Melanie felt that the only way she would ever “become anybody” would be to leave Greenville and move to New York City, and this is where the self-disclosure and intimate relationship she had with her family came to an end. There was no longer any cohesion in their relationship. This went on for seven years until Melanie’s engagement when she is forced to go back to Greenville and confront her parents and husband. When Melanie arrives back in Alabama, she has to adapt back into the family lifestyle that she once had. Things were much different for her in New York, so it does take a little bit of adjustments for her to regain cohesion with her family and the