YMMV / Sweet Home Alabama

• Critical Dissonance: On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 38% critics score and a 78% Audience one. Critics in general tend to look at the movie more negatively, while average viewers are more likely to find something interesting in it.
• Designated Hero: More than one viewer thought Melanie was incredibly unsympathetic and selfish, especially to Andrew.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Fans like Wade, the surprisingly young and laid back local sheriff, and Melanie's New York friends Frederick and Tabatha, who have a nice bit of depth and a little Fish out of Water scenes.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Fans tend to like most (although not all) of the deleted scenes that introduce Erin (a character who plays a notable role in the ending montage) and show Melanie interacting with Jake's mother and expressing more regret for her Alcohol-Induced Idiocy. The consensus is that they aren't quite great, but could have added a little to the movie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Melanie meets up with Bobby Ray for the first time in the film, she inquires about his high school girlfriend, claiming they were "hot and heavy" back in the day. Bobby Ray makes a reference to her "coaching softball" out of state, and seems to imply that she's a Lesbian Jock. This is, of course, hilarious after The Reveal that Bobby Ray himself is gay, and you realize he and his "hot and heavy" girlfriend were likely overcompensating as The Beard for each other.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many people went to see the film in theaters all because of Reese Witherspoon.
• Tear Jerker: The scene where Melanie apologizes to her late dog Bear at his gravesite for leaving and not being there for him when he passed away.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The scenes featuring the character of Erin who marries Andrew in the movie's epilogue were all cut due to one of them giving test audiences the mistaken impression that Andrew was cheating on Melanie, when that scene wasn't essential to her plot line, which gave a little extra development to both Andrew and Melanie and would have made the newspaper clipping of Andrew's marriage at the end fit in better.
• Values Dissonance: Melanie drunkenly outing Bobby Ray in front of his entire community is treated as a joke on par with the other vaguely embarrassing secrets she blabs. Not only is outing someone without their consent taken far more seriously now, given how the Deep South is still to this day rather intolerant, this would potentially put Bobby Ray's friendships, career or even life in serious danger.
• Values Resonance: Jake's tolerance for Bobby Ray is nothing short of exemplary, with him not so subtly making sure everyone treats him equally and later when he mistakes Andrew for Bobby Ray's new boyfriend, he sounds incredibly happy that he found someone.

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