Review of A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) by Kanwar A — 10 May 2008

A Love Song for Bobby Long seems to be as flawed as the characters in the film. "Life is better in books!" Pursy screams at one point. How true! It's so often that we see movies with corny cliche characters.

(This is probably the reason we so easily fall in love with the indie films that attempt to stray from stereotypes.) But A Love Song for Bobby Long does not attempt to make life seem better in this story, at least not at first.

The hobbling drinking John Travolta either will cause you to look down in disgust or dig deeper. A character carrying that much weight in his walk (no pun intended) must have some history. Pursy, a spunky teenager, wants moreso to stumble upon the history of her mother, or is she just trying to get away? (As a side note, Pursy was supposed to be eighteen in this movie.

Scarlet Johnasson plays an eighteen year old? I don't buy it. Although props to her acting skills. She was fabulous.) Also, (spoiler right here) might I add that I very much appreciated the fact that Lawson and Pursy didn't share the extremely end-of-the-movie-esque kiss that it looked like was going to happen in the last shot.

Of course, there would be no reason to (they were, afterall, sitting at a gravesite), but I'm just saying. Overall, the human conflict between the three characters is connected by one woman who remains off scene, six feet under to be exact.

Over the painful duration of this film (which drags a lot if you're not into the plot), the characters change and their relationships morph almost every ten minutes. Overall, watch out for drag, focus on the characters rather than the plot, and this movie will be a tear jerker.