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A Love Song for Bobby Long is a somber and lumbering story that makes the mistake of thinking the story and characters presented here are a lot more interesting than they really are.
This is the story of a young girl named Percy(Scarlett Johansson)who, upon learning of her mother's death, journeys to New Orleans to claim her mother's home and, upon her arrival, finds an alcoholic former college professor (John Travolta) and an alcoholic former writer (Gabriel Macht) living there.
The rest of the movie is a long and not terribly interesting character study of these three characters and how they eventually bond. The primary problem with this film is that the most interesting character in the story is already dead at the beginning of the film. Her relationship with the three main characters is fuzzy at the beginning of the film and kept fuzzy throughout most of the film's running time and for some reason this seems deliberate. Perhaps if we had known a little more about the relationships Percy's mom had with these people, the film might have been more successful in sustaining our interest. I have never been much of a proponent of flashback as a film making technique, but this is one story that really could have used a flashback or two that might have shed some light into the relationship this woman had with Percy and with these two men. We eventually are given some insight into the kind of woman this was; unfortunately, by the time this happens, we are bored to death and really don't care anymore.
The actors work very hard at keeping the proceedings watchable but they are fighting a very talky and unimaginative screenplay. Despite Scarlett Johansson's strongest performance to date and Travolta's first serious foray into the category of "Character actor", the whole thing comes off like a photographed stage play...bad Tennessee Williams and about 45 minutes before the credits roll, we just want the characters to drink enough to pass out so we don't have to listen to them anymore.
A Love Song for Bobby Long is a somber and lumbering story that makes the mistake of thinking the story and characters presented here are a lot more interesting than they really are.
This is the story of a young girl named Percy(Scarlett Johansson)who, upon learning of her mother's death, journeys to New Orleans to claim her mother's home and, upon her arrival, finds an alcoholic former college professor (John Travolta) and an alcoholic former writer (Gabriel Macht) living there.
The rest of the movie is a long and not terribly interesting character study of these three characters and how they eventually bond. The primary problem with this film is that the most interesting character in the story is already dead at the beginning of the film. Her relationship with the three main characters is fuzzy at the beginning of the film and kept fuzzy throughout most of the film's running time and for some reason this seems deliberate. Perhaps if we had known a little more about the relationships Percy's mom had with these people, the film might have been more successful in sustaining our interest. I have never been much of a proponent of flashback as a film making technique, but this is one story that really could have used a flashback or two that might have shed some light into the relationship this woman had with Percy and with these two men. We eventually are given some insight into the kind of woman this was; unfortunately, by the time this happens, we are bored to death and really don't care anymore.
The actors work very hard at keeping the proceedings watchable but they are fighting a very talky and unimaginative screenplay. Despite Scarlett Johansson's strongest performance to date and Travolta's first serious foray into the category of "Character actor", the whole thing comes off like a photographed stage play...bad Tennessee Williams and about 45 minutes before the credits roll, we just want the characters to drink enough to pass out so we don't have to listen to them anymore.