A Love Song For Bobby Long - Movie Review

in #movies6 years ago

I am not sure how I ended up with A love Song for Bobby Long in my streaming queue, but I suspect my wife may have sneaked this one in. That's not a bad thing. But I don't recall any particular reason that this title ended up in my mailbox. Nothing about the description would have prompted me to pick this one.

A Love Song for Bobby Long is about relationships. As such, it is about the people in those relationships, making it a character study. The characters are thrown together through a variety of bad decisions and tragedy. Pursy Will (Scarlett Johansson) is a teenage high school dropout who lives with her loser boyfriend in a filthy trailer. When Pursy learns that her estranged mother died several days ago, she catches a bus to New Orleans in hopes of attending her funeral. Pursy ends up at her mother's run-down house which she finds occupied by two alcoholic men. She has not seen her mother in years and finds herself in an awkward situation.

The men are an odd duo. One is a washed up professor, Bobby Long (John Travolta), the other is his former teacher's assistant, Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht). Pines is working on the manuscript for a book on Bobby Long. He shreds or burns the pages almost as quickly as he writes them. His writers block appears to be tied to the subject matter. Pines is tied to Long by tragedy, maintaining their relationship out of guilt as much as friendship. The pair lie to Pursy and tell her that her mother left the house to the three of them equally. In reality, the two loafers have been given a year to reside in the house before it becomes Pursy's sole property.

Bobby feels threatened by Pursy's arrival and engages in a conflicted, combative relationship with the teen. Lawson is attracted to the beautiful young lady, who bears a strong resemblance to her mother. Her mother, it seems, was very popular with the local men. If popular translates to sexual encounters. Pursy has heard about her father from stories she has heard her grandmother tell, but has never met him. She has the feeling that her father may be among the many men that surround her. Her own clouded memories begin to clear up as she spends her first year in New Orleans, finding out the truth about her past and discovering herself.

A Love Song for Bobby Long is a memoir. It is the recollections of Lawton Pines recorded in a novel that ties the story together. The story has fluid narration that feels like pages ripped from the novel. I am not certain if the writer, Ronald Everett Capps, created pure fiction or has drawn from his own experiences. The film is based on Capps' Off Magazine Street. It was translated to it's screen form by Director Shainee Gabel. I am not sure if Gabel interpreted the characters as she found them or whether she exaggerated Capps' creations. Whichever is the case, I found the characters to be drawn with a heavy hand. While they were intricate and unique, they were also flat in many aspects of their characteristics. I found their actions to defy logic at times. The plot was somewhat predictable, but was an enjoyable ride anyway.

John Travolta has grown on me over the years. I don't love everything he has done, but I have enjoyed some of his films. This one was somewhere in the middle. His performance was hammy and over the top, but was somewhat engaging. Johansson was the bright spot in this film, and even her performance wasn't flawless. I liked her in this role. She seemed to enjoy her character and appeared to dive in head first. Macht had a more believable role, which probably made it easier for him to relate to me. I enjoyed his performance, but it wasn't necessarily a stretch. The cast was okay, but some character issues may have affected my full immersion in their performances.

A Love Song for Bobby Long includes quite a bit of adult language and themes. I don't recall any actual nudity, but there was plenty of talk about sex or sexual situations. The film had plenty of strong language, smoking and drinking (which are elements that don't worry me much). Overall, I found the material fairly tame for an R rating. I would suggest a teen audience should be adequate for this film. The film has a run time of one hour, 59 minutes.

A Love Song for Bobby Long was flawed. However, it wasn't fatally flawed. While some aspects of the film were heavy handed, the story was engaging enough to hold my interest. I found many of the plot elements to be predictable, but they were interesting to watch develop. There were some credibility issues with the story and Travolta seemed over-the-top at times. So I am surprised to find that I would actually recommend this film. It is stereotypical and derivative, but in the end, I enjoyed it. Mildly. 6/10.

Trailer and images subject to copyright.

Sort:  

Thank you for your continued support of SteemSilverGold

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70638.80
ETH 3565.34
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.73