A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG (2004) **1/2 John Travolta, Scarlett Johanssen, Gabriel Macht, Deborah Kara Unger.
What is it about movies down south, specifically The Big Easy, New Orleans, that evokes a certain Southern Gothic laziness that is refreshing for the most part in its colorful atmosphere and usually borderline characters near caricatures? I suppose it is the quaintness of what Yankees think in general about the redneck culture and its subcultures or hybrids if you will.
The latest cinematic gumbo is a picaresque shades of the '70s storytelling with newcomer filmmaker Shainee Gabel's adaptation of Ronald Everett Capps' slightly eccentric tale about a somewhat independent young woman named Pursy Will (Johanssen continuing to be an interesting screen presence in her eclectic roles to date) who reluctantly returns home for the funeral of her estranged local heroine/folksinger Lorraine Will (who is never depicted on screen only in fond recollections) where she discovers her late mother's house is inhabited by Bobby Long (Travolta in his Southern accent mode) a cantankerous aging drunk and former professor of literature who has holed up as a latter-day squatter of sorts with his young protégé and wanna be author Lawson Pines (Macht in an underplayed turn). They inform her that Lorraine would want them to continue to share the home with her daughter should she arrive and begrudgingly the trio form an unlikely family of ne'er do wells and dreamers.
Pursy learns from the local inhabitants that her mama was practically royalty in their local hamlet while also discovering some secrets about her own past. Pursy has the intelligence for better things but not the will to return to school despite Lawson and Bobby's urgings until she eventually caves in despite a few pepperings of disagreements and arguments particularly from an ever peeved Bobby who also nurses a few skeletons in his closet.
If the viewer can't grasp the final act's set up with its so blatant set-up than I don't know what else to tell you but in spite of some of the predictable traces to the eventual climax the acting is a mixed bag. Normally I dig Travolta having a good time chewing scenery but I'm always perplexed whenever he does a Southern character; it's just never believable to me. Macht has some quietly affecting moments as he falls in love with Johanssen's feisty Pursy and she too has a nice moment or too herself.
The direction does seem to meander a bit and sometimes the next sequence doesn't transition so smoothly as it may have in the book. The general appeal is the interplay between the three leads who do seem to coagulate nicely as a distaff family of misfits.
Overall the folksy-ness does rub off but in a good way; with bonhomie to spare.
What is it about movies down south, specifically The Big Easy, New Orleans, that evokes a certain Southern Gothic laziness that is refreshing for the most part in its colorful atmosphere and usually borderline characters near caricatures? I suppose it is the quaintness of what Yankees think in general about the redneck culture and its subcultures or hybrids if you will.
The latest cinematic gumbo is a picaresque shades of the '70s storytelling with newcomer filmmaker Shainee Gabel's adaptation of Ronald Everett Capps' slightly eccentric tale about a somewhat independent young woman named Pursy Will (Johanssen continuing to be an interesting screen presence in her eclectic roles to date) who reluctantly returns home for the funeral of her estranged local heroine/folksinger Lorraine Will (who is never depicted on screen only in fond recollections) where she discovers her late mother's house is inhabited by Bobby Long (Travolta in his Southern accent mode) a cantankerous aging drunk and former professor of literature who has holed up as a latter-day squatter of sorts with his young protégé and wanna be author Lawson Pines (Macht in an underplayed turn). They inform her that Lorraine would want them to continue to share the home with her daughter should she arrive and begrudgingly the trio form an unlikely family of ne'er do wells and dreamers.
Pursy learns from the local inhabitants that her mama was practically royalty in their local hamlet while also discovering some secrets about her own past. Pursy has the intelligence for better things but not the will to return to school despite Lawson and Bobby's urgings until she eventually caves in despite a few pepperings of disagreements and arguments particularly from an ever peeved Bobby who also nurses a few skeletons in his closet.
If the viewer can't grasp the final act's set up with its so blatant set-up than I don't know what else to tell you but in spite of some of the predictable traces to the eventual climax the acting is a mixed bag. Normally I dig Travolta having a good time chewing scenery but I'm always perplexed whenever he does a Southern character; it's just never believable to me. Macht has some quietly affecting moments as he falls in love with Johanssen's feisty Pursy and she too has a nice moment or too herself.
The direction does seem to meander a bit and sometimes the next sequence doesn't transition so smoothly as it may have in the book. The general appeal is the interplay between the three leads who do seem to coagulate nicely as a distaff family of misfits.
Overall the folksy-ness does rub off but in a good way; with bonhomie to spare.