>>REVIEW
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG
DIRECTED BY Shainee Gabel
Columbia Tristar Home Video, 2004
A Love Song For Bobby Long is a touching movie about redemption, second chances and the importance of embracing family wherever you find it.
In the movie, teenager Purslane Hominy Will (Scarlett Johansson) returns to New Orleans after her mother’s death to discover that two of her mother’s friends, Bobby Long (John Travolta) and Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht), are living in the house she has inherited.
As Purslane, a high school dropout, seethes with anger and resentment at the dead mother she feels abandoned her, Bobby and Lawson, both alcoholics who have completely opted out of mainstream society, go out of their way to alienate and repulse her so she’ll leave. But Purslane stubbornly decides to stay and along the way she learns who she is and where she comes from.
Many critics have panned this film for its southern stereotypes, bad accents and predictable storyline. However, the performances of the leads are so strong that it’s easy to become emotionally invested in the characters. Johansson gives a powerful performance as a teenager with a tough facade who just wants to be loved and understood, and to belong.
Meanwhile, Travolta is enthralling as a debauched southern gentleman who likes to quote poetry and flirt with every woman who crosses his path, but who is also fully aware that he’s a failure in life. At first Travolta’s Bobby Long seems like a caricature, but then you realize he’s even a caricature to himself – always larger than life, always trapped in the role of performing for those around him. Macht gives a compelling performance as an angst-ridden writer who is crippled with self-doubt and deep in a rut. All of them are lost and broken in their own way, but they end up rescuing each other.
Sure, it’s a storyline that’s been repeated over and over again in movies, but here it’s believable and moving. |
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