A Love Song For Bobby Long Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)December 13th, 2004
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A Love Song for Bobby Long is the feature film debut from Shainee Gabel, who adapts the story from Ronald Everett Capps's novel Off Magazine Street. Like Company (which is being dropped the same day), this picture features both Scarlett Johansson and a 50-year-old guy in what is supposed to be an "awards worthy" performance. The guy here is John Travolta, and his role would be meaty Oscar stuff in the hands of a number of actors, but Travolta just ain't one of them. His turn is valiant, but ultimately transparent.
But, that said, he does dance in it, and all of Travolta's legendary comebacks revolve around him having a big dance scene.
Johansson is Purceline Will, the epitome of Florida trailer trash who ditches her days of watching television and eating peanut butter and M&Ms with a spoon when she finds out her estranged mother has died in New Orleans. Because her stupid boyfriend didn't give her the message about mom 's funeral on time, Purcy shows up a day late and discovers she's inherited a portion of the family's dilapidated house, as well as its equally ramshackle inhabitants: Drunk, quote-spouting ex-professor Bobby Long (Travolta, Ladder 49) and his writing protégé, the far-from-sober Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht, The Recruit).
The drunks plan to make Purcy miserable enough to ditch them and the house so they can mix alcohol and pickle juice in private. But Purcy's infectious attitude - which, at some point, has made the giant leap from couch potato to aspiring x-ray technician - wins over as she gets the Ben Sanderson wannabes to give up the sauce and turn their lives around. Oh, and did I mention that Purcy never knew her dad, and that the curmudgeon we call Bobby never really knew his kids? Those two will be, literally, the only two people in the theatre who can't see the end of this film coming from a mile away.
On the plus side, Song is shot well and looks pretty (it's photographed by ex-Soderbergh lenser Elliot Davis), and it gives Johansson a chance to show a little bit of range. Not much, but way more than Company or The Perfect Score. I thought Macht was effective in a subtler, better way than Travolta. And I wished that Song had the touch of David Gordon Green, and that Gabel didn't change Purcy's mom from a morbidly obese mental patient to an attractive, moderately successful lounge singer.
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