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Melanie later lashes out at her old friends while drunk, denigrating their lifestyle. Lurlynn is profane and provincial, but well-meaning. Witherspoon’s character is mildly taken aback by Lurlynn’s kid and lack of sophistication, but not appalled or rude. Although it has its share of tropes about urban versus rural life, it allows many of its citified Yankees and gun-totin’ Southerners to be something beyond a cartoon. In that moment in the film, it’s unclear whether “Sweet Home Alabama” wants us to see Lurlynn as a positive character, which is one of the things I appreciate about the movie. Whether they imbibe or not, the experience is a mark of a return to some normalcy and a declaration that they can, indeed, manage several different things at once in this new phase of life. Often, their maiden voyages outside the house with the baby are a boozy brunch with friends or a Thursday happy hour with a teensy newborn strapped to their chests. I cannot tell you how many young-mom friends of mine have referenced this scene as we talk about our adventures juggling life, friends, work, and family. She’d probably hang out with her at the bar. And, most importantly, Lurlynn exhibits not a hint of shame or second-guessing for the decision she has made to have her breastfeeding baby with her in this establishment. There is an appreciation of her situation, but no suggestion she would begrudge a formula-feeding mother her choices. He’s breastfeeding, so she’s got him at the bar. This baby in a bar is an endorsement of breastfeeding without shaming any other forms of feeding babies. She needs the semi-me time, babies like the white noise, and when they’re little no one can hear them fuss, or even see them if you’re baby-wearing. This is not just a baby in a bar. A baby in a bar is also a mom living her life, out with friends, while taking care of a baby. There are a couple commendable things going on, here. When they are still on the tit, you can indeed cart them anywhere.
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That’s the famous line, but I had forgotten the one after it, which is a veritable life philosophy for motherhood. Lurlynn, who is nonchalantly toting an infant during the preceding conversation, smiles unabashed and declares, “Hell, I got three more at home! This one’s still on the tit, so I can cart him anywhere.” Melanie replies, “Look at you! You have a baby…in a bar.” “Oh my God! Look at you, all fancy! You look like you just stepped out of a magazine.” We are introduced to her as Melanie struts into the local honky tonk wearing her own designer duds, and Lurlynn greets her effusively.
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Lurlynn, played by Melanie Lynskey, is a friend of Witherspoon’s character’s from high school. The film is rated a pretty dismal 38 percent by Rotten Tomatoes, but I revisited it with a glass of wine, as my chromosomes would have me do, and Witherspoon’s charm is as usual more than enough to make the film worth watching. But this 2002 film has a lesson that will resound forever, and it has nothing to do with Jake and Melanie, or even Dempsey’s enduring hotness. Along the way, we find culture clashes, hilarity, and and maybe, just maybe, a third-act plot twist, an unrealistically magnanimous jilted lover, and the true meaning of love. She’s still technically married to her childhood sweetheart, Jake (Josh Lucas), and the city mouse must go back to the country in her black turtlenecks and Jimmy Choos to get a divorce.