Although a note-worthy directorial debut achievement by Antonio Banderas, Crazy in Alabama suffers from having to cater to two stories; that of Peejoe (Lucas Black), a white boy fighting against racial injustices in Alabama, and that of his aunt Lucille, a battered wife who kills her husband, leaves her 7 children with her mother, and goes off to try out for her big chance of becoming a Hollywood star.

We disagreed on whether Melanie Griffith was the best actress for the part of Lucille. Craig didn’t think so, and Anna-Maria thinks Melanie does well playing dim, but good-hearted starlets. We do agree, however, that her character was mired in unrealistic ground of good-hearted, simple wife and mother, sex-bomb who wins everybody over with her charm, and husband killer who gives "poor-unappreciated wife" speeches at trial.

We are currently sufficiently aware of spouse abuse that Lucille’s speeches about it rob the movie of its full dramatic punch. We were pushed over the edge when she whines that her husband didn’t appreciate the meals she worked so hard to cook. We are trying to rationalize a murder here, not a divorce or resentment.

We got a few laughs watching Lucille trek across the country and talk to her dead husband whose head she is carrying in a hatbox. If this had been edgier or played more surreally, it might have worked.

Unfortunately, while the story follows Lucille to Hollywood, we were distracted from a much more profound story back in Alabama. Craig is a big fan of Lucas Black who played Peejoe. The young actor has mastered a kind of openhearted earnestness in uncovering the good and true in life. In Peejoe’s story, a black friend is murdered by the town sheriff (Meat Loaf) while attempting to peacefully integrate the swimming pool. Peejoe’s and Lucille’s stories are tied by the Sheriff’s attempt to silence Peejoe by pushing for the prosecution of Aunt Lucille, but this is the loosest of knots and just does not hold the whole thing together.