Sweet Home Alabama is a 2002 American romantic comedy film opens on a stormy Alabama beach with two children, Melanie Smooter and Jake Perry, chasing each other. A young woman , Melanie (Reese Witherspoon), who has changed her last name to Carmichael to hide her poor Southern roots, is a successful up-and-coming fashion designer in New York City, must return home to Alabama to obtain a divorce from her husband, after seven years of separation.