Elvis and Anabelle

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Elvis and Anabelle
Promotional release poster
Directed by	Will Geiger
Screenplay by	Will Geiger
Produced by	Carolyn Pfeiffer Nick Quested Gregory Collins Tom Schatz
Starring	Blake Lively Max Minghella Joe Mantegna Mary Steenburgen Keith Carradine
Cinematography	Conrad W. Hall
Edited by	Sandra Adair
Music by	Blake Neely
Production company	Goldcrest Films
Distributed by	The Weinstein Company
Release date	March 10, 2007 (2007-03-10) (SXSW)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Elvis and Anabelle is an American romantic drama film written and directed by Will Geiger. It stars Blake Lively,^[1] Max Minghella, Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, and Keith Carradine. The film premiered on March 10, 2007, at the South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas, and later premiered on HBO in 2012.

Plot Summary[]

Elvis Moreau is a teenage boy who cares for his father Charlie and runs the family funeral home business. Years before, Charlie became mentally handicapped, so Elvis had to take over operating the funeral home. However, since Elvis doesn't have his embalming license, the Moreaus lie and say Charlie performs the services himself. Elvis has a habit of photographing the finished corpses after he's finished working and collects the photos in a scrapbook.

Not too far away, Anabelle Leigh is a small-town pageant girl. She lives with her mother Geneva and alcoholic stepfather Jimmy. Anabelle struggles with an eating disorder and is likely a victim of sexual abuse from Jimmy. Geneva introduced Anabelle to beauty pageants at a very young age in hopes that Anabelle's success would give the two of them an opportunity for financial independence from Jimmy and the other men they've had to rely on in the past.

Anabelle competes in and wins an important pageant which would qualify her for a national pageant. Moments after the crown is placed on her head, she goes into cardiac arrest (which was likely caused by her eating disorder) and dies on stage. She is sent to the Moreaus' Funeral Home, where Elvis begins working on her. Entranced by her beauty, he kisses Anabelle. The camera accidentally goes off at this exact moment, and a gust of wind causes the windows to burst open. Elvis goes to the window to shut it, and Anabelle suddenly gasps. In complete shock, Elvis realizes Anabelle is alive and calls the police. He wakes Charlie and tells him to pretend he was the one working with Anabelle.

Anabelle returns home to Geneva and Jimmy a very different person. Her eating disorder seems to be resolved, and she has no interest in competing in pageants anymore. Geneva, however, still sees the pageants as the way her and Anabelle will be able to leave Jimmy and pressures her to continue competing and doing interviews. Anabelle gets constant flashbacks to the night she woke up, and wants to learn more. She shows up at the Moreaus' home, hoping to learn more about that night if she could see where it happened. Elvis answers the door and is reluctant to let her inside, fearing she will find out that he is actually the one who does the work despite not having a license. He turns Anabelle away and she goes home. That night, she leaves her house and bikes to the Moreaus' once again. This time, she lets herself in. She lays on the table trying to relive that night. Elvis confronts her, thinking that somebody broke in. Charlie finds the two, and Elvis has to remind him to stick to the story that he was the one working with Anabelle, not Elvis. Elvis walks Anabelle out, but she asks to stay until the sun comes up so she can bike home. He complies, but when morning comes, it is very clear that Anabelle does not want to go home. Elvis lets her stay at their house.

Anabelle and Elvis slowly become friends as Anabelle starts a project to make the home less "spooky". She begins painting the house. Eventually, Elvis joins too.

One morning, Elvis wakes Anabelle and shows her a newspaper headline saying she's gone missing. Anabelle is annoyed, claiming Geneva knows she ran away. Elvis expresses his concern about the possibility of police finding her at his house, and she reassures him, saying no one will think of coming to the house.

That day while painting, Anabelle asks why there's nothing growing in the field next to the house. Elvis says it's too hot for anything to grow there. Anabelle doesn't believe him, and convinces Elvis to take her to town and get seeds to plant in the field. Even though Elvis asks, she won't tell him what she's planting, instead saying it's "a miracle". While she's planting the seeds, a police officer stops by the house and asks Elvis and Charlie if they've seen Anabelle lately. They say they haven't. Elvis talks to Anabelle again about his concern of police finding Anabelle. Anabelle is indifferent, telling Elvis she's there on her own free will and the Moreaus' can't get in trouble for that.

Anabelle and Elvis continue to bond. One night, they go for a walk and end up on the bridge Elvis and Charlie are shown earlier in the film bringing flowers to. Elvis tells Anabelle this is where Elvis' mother committed suicide on Christmas Day when he was 12. He tells her Charlie wasn't the same after his mother's death, and started going on very long walks. It was on one of these walks where he was hit in the head with a beer bottle, causing his disability. Elvis explains how he can't believe in miracles after what he's been through. Anabelle kisses him, but it triggers another flashback and she pulls away.

Anabelle and Elvis find police at the house after their walk and hide outside until they're gone. The pair come inside to a distraught Charlie. Though the police now know Anabelle was staying there, Charlie told them she drove off in a car they don't own. With her cover blown, Anabelle says she has a friend who lives in a town far away and she'll figure out a way to get there. Charlie tells Elvis to leave with Anabelle. Elvis resists at first, not wanting to leave Charlie by himself. Eventually Charlie gets through to him, and the pair take the car and leave.

Police get back to Geneva and Jimmy and report what they found out from Charlie. Geneva asks for a search warrant to the house, but this isn't possible due to the fact that Anabelle ran away and wasn't kidnapped. . Elvis and Anabelle finally reach their destination, but Anabelle breaks the news that she doesn't really have a friend here. Instead, the two go sight seeing and live on the beach for a couple weeks. Their relationship turns romantic.

Having been denied a search warrant, Geneva goes to the Moreaus' herself to find answers. She finds the clothes Anabelle wore the night she first went to the house. She finds the accidental photograph of Elvis kissing Anabelle in the trash can of the mortuary and calls the police.

On the drive home, Elvis and Anabelle stop at a gas station, where they both find newspapers with the picture Geneva found and headlines accusing Elvis of necrophilia. The gas station cashier recognizes the couple and calls the police. Anabelle thinks Elvis took full advantage of her in the morgue and confronts him, but he is arrested before getting the chance to explain.

Anabelle is returned to Geneva and Jimmy. In jail, police question Elvis about what happened and he tells them the truth. A few days later, Anabelle visits Elvis in jail. A fight breaks out between the two and right before Anabelle leaves, Elvis tells her what really happened the night the photo was taken. Anabelle is shocked, not understanding how even after that, Elvis doesn't believe in miracles. She leaves.

Elvis returns home and finds Charlie dead outside. Having lost all the will to live, he starts planning his suicide. Right before hanging himself, a gust of wind blows the house doors open, and Elvis sees Anabelle's miracle: a sunflower field. Suddenly, the chair he's standing on collapses, but Elvis somehow manages to resupport himself and remove the noose from his neck. He runs outside to a crowd of reporters waiting for him.

Meanwhile, Anabelle also starts setting up her suicide. She starts nudging a running TV towards her bath. Right before the TV falls into the water to electrocute her, she sees the news showing Elvis painting "I love you Anabelle" onto the house.

Elvis walks into the sunflower field and lays down to look up at the flowers and the sky. Anabelle meets him, and the couple look up at the sky together.

Cast[]

• Max Minghella as Elvis Moreau
• Blake Lively as Anabelle Leigh
• Joe Mantegna as Charlie Moreau
• Mary Steenburgen as Geneva Leigh
• Keith Carradine as Jimmy

Critical reception[]

A reviewer writing for Movieline praised the performances of Lively and Minghella, and called the film "a dark and dreamy slice of Southern gothic romance, having all the hallmarks of a cult film in the making, destined for Gen-Z status."^[2]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Elvis and Anabelle at IMDb
• Elvis and Anabelle at Rotten Tomatoes