The next morning, a worked-over room service cart stands beside the bed where Drew slumbers away. As Claire collects her things to leave, she stumbles noisily around the room in an attempt to "accidentally" wake him, but Drew remains sound asleep. After cooing an impression of him begging, "Claire, don't leave, stay!", Claire takes an imaginary picture of sleeping Drew and takes her leave.

Claire rides the elevator to the Brown Hotel lobby, where the doors open and she is besieged by throngs of applauding civilians, whooping and catcalling in response to Claire's sexual conquest. As she tries to leave the building, Claire is delighted by all this attention, even as one female guest playfully hoots, "You slut!"

Drew wakes up and notices Claire leaving, catching her outside in the parking lot to confess that he was fired four days ago and lost his company $1 billion, and an unflattering magazine article about him is running tomorrow. Unimpressed, Claire informs Drew that there are things worse than failure, and drives away in disappointment.

One of Elizabethtown's most central themes reaches apex in this clip, and that is the concept of Claire Colburn as an exclusively cinematic character with absolutely no counterpart in the real world. First, she is juxtaposed with a gown-clad heroine on the television screen, who rescues her shoe from underneath the bed in synchronicity with Claire. Though it seems impossible, perhaps it was judged too blatant to have Elizabethtown itself playing on TV.

Similarly, Claire's slapstick performance as she tries to wake Drew from apparent cryogenic sleep is solely for the benefit of the camera, as there is no one else in the room except Mitch's ashes, though we already know how comfortable she feels addressing them personally. As Claire stomps around the room, drops her purse, jangles her keys, and announces, "I'm walking out the door," we wonder what stops her from popping a balloon in Drew's ear, or perhaps jackhammering some concrete next to the bed.

The careful viewer will note a small amount of character development in Drew as well, as he has clearly learned to harness the power of his own passivity and use it for good, lying unresponsive in bed and simply waiting for Claire to expunge herself from his life. However, the sting of this apparent snub is counterbalanced by the sudden flush of ovation that greets Claire in the lobby. How boring must Chuck and Cindy's wedding be for one flight attendant's sex life to become the focal point of everyone's weekend?

More importantly, where are the majority of Claire's devotees located? While there are certainly an inordinate number of people waiting directly outside the elevator for Claire to emerge at some point this morning, the actual sound of cheering suggests that Claire has just scored a touchdown at the Superbowl and not a moderately attractive underachiever named "Drew."

Meanwhile, Drew wakes up to find his clock reset to EST (Elizabethtown Standard Time) and stands half-naked at the window to watch Claire walk to her car. One cut later, Drew has gotten fully dressed, left his room, taken the elevator, probably encountered some rowdy catcallers in the lobby, and run across the parking lot to find Claire no closer to her car. Either Claire was expectantly waiting for Drew to show up and talk to her, or we now have irrefutable proof that Claire literally ceases to exist when a camera isn't pointed at her.

The remainder of this clip deals with Drew and Claire's first fight, motivated primarily by the fact that this is the part of a romantic comedy where the couple has their first fight, as no other reason presents itself. When Drew admits his $1 billion failure to Claire, we are meant to understand that his tattered career has been hanging over him for the entire film, though it hasn't. Instead, Claire wonders what the big deal is, which seems appropriate considering she does not have a problem simply not showing up for her own job.

Claire admirably refuses to buy into Drew's cloying self-pity, informing him, "You failed!" 13.5 times. If Cameron Crowe identifies with his male leads as closely as we suspect, "You failed!" represents Elizabethtown's first official review, nearly an hour before the movie is even finished. Naturally, Claire proceeds to redirect the topic at hand to herself, complaining, "I guess I just thought a small part of you might be a small bit sad to see me go." As we find it difficult to respond to this scene and its confounding word-salad dialogue, we can only respond with a list of questions:

• Why would Drew be sad to see Claire go?
• Where is she going?
• Why didn't she just wake him up?
• Was all of Drew's abberant, antisocial behavior really about shoes?
• What are they disagreeing about?
• Who cares?

• Chuck comforted Drew in the hallway
• Chuck invited Drew to his rehearsal dinner
• Cindy invited Claire on a tour of Maker's Mark
• Generously allowed Mitch's memorial to take place at the same time, date, and location as their wedding

Some things Drew and Claire have done in return

• Drew stole beer and used his father's death as an excuse
• Drew took a room on their party floor
• Drew agreed to and did not show up for the rehearsal dinner
• Claire agreed to and did not show up for the tour of Maker's Mark
• Left an urn full of dead person at their dais
• Mocked their vows
• Used their sex life to divert attention from Chuck and Cindy on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives

-- Claire to Drew