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A Love Song for Bobby Long
(2004)
Dir: Shainee Gabel
It’s good to know that John Travolta is still capable of starring in a good film. He hasn’t done anything noteworthy since Terrence Malicks’ The Thin Red Line (yes, I’m including Swordfish in the pile of stinkers). I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a Travolta performance as much as his turn in A Love Song for Bobby Long--Vincent Vega was leading the competition on that though. Shainee Gabel directed Bobby Long with only the experience of directing a documentary under her belt, but you couldn’t tell that while watching it. Shainee handles the slow development of the characters like a pro. Always feeding us enough information on each character so that we understand the choices they make.
The film is about Pursy, played by Scarlett Johansson. Pursy was named after a weed that is picked by most gardeners, but holds the beauty of most flowers (we’re told). When Pursy hears of her mother’s death, she attempts to go to the funeral even though she doesn’t remember her at all. Pursy’s mother, Lorain, sent her away at a young age to live with her grandma. Arriving a day late for the funeral because she didn’t get the message on time, Pursy finds Lorain’s old house, which is been occupied by two drunks. One informs her that he just lives there, then wakes up the other so that he can say the same. They tell her she now co-owns the house with them by wish of Lorain. These once handsome and respectable men walk around the house everyday quoting from any number of the thousands of books they’ve read while drinking like fish. Travolta, the older of the two drunks, plays Bobby, and Gabrial Macht, the younger fella, plays Lawson. As the film goes along, we slowly find out why theses two have ended up in this house, and why Pursy hates the one woman everyone else seems to have loved so much.
Lorain, in her absence, is one of the strongest characters in the film. We never see her on screen because she dies before the story starts, but by the end we know her as well as we do of any of the other characters. When everything is coming to a conclusion you realize that you’ve met three people who have hard and complicated lives that only start working because of Lorain’s death. She is a woman who couldn’t figure out how to finish what she started until after she died. Lorain is the mastermind of the film, she holds all the cards and plays perfectly. A Love Song for Bobby Long is a wonderful film that captures the beauty in human beings.
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| If you life this movie, the Internet Movie Database also reccomends, Leathal Weapon 3 (1992). |
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