Customer Reviews

A Love Song for Bobby Long

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4 star:		(1)
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I purchased the DVD, 'Love Song for Bobby Long', as a Christmas gift for my wife. She had seen a part of the movie and had been looking to purchase it ever since, but she hadn't been able to locate it. She was very happy when I found it and bought it on Amazon. She enjoyed the movie immensely.

I've read the reviews of this film that came out upon the first release very carefully. What I can't make sense of is the fact that they're uniformly awful.

I'll grant this much: it's not the sort of masterpiece that becomes part of the American heritage. In fact, if you live in Canada as I do, it takes a bit of research to find out that it ever was made. I bought the DVD pretty much on spec, bearing in mind only two of its features that I wanted: a) it's Travolta once more using that Southern accent that served him so well in "Primary Colors" and b) it's a chance to see Scarlett Johansson in something not directed by Woody Allen. In fact, both turned in excellent performances, Travolta rather more than excellent; and Gabriel Macht was something of a discovery for me.

The real hero, though, was the setting and what the director made of it. Choosing Gretna was a stroke of genius; it's a beat-up suburb that gets a really bad press (and is instantly recognizable to anyone who knows New Orleans at all), the architecture is more or less the same as that of the French Quarter, and - although Shainee Gabel couldn't have guessed this at the time - Gretna didn't take too much of a pounding from Katrina, so that film buffs can visit the location and point out the house, the bar, Cecil's garden, and so on. Another good idea was the re-writing of the novel in parts - notably making Lawson younger than Bobby instead of the dissolute contemporary of the original. The ending was unsurprising, but not, I think, predictable (I'd been guessing, after the scene in the bar during Purslane's date with Sean, that Junior would turn out to be her father); as it is, it has to have a happily-ever-after ending - both for Purslane's and for Bobby's sake. It ends on a maudlin note [NO SPOILER HERE], but maybe that had to be necessary too.

Anyway, three fine leads; a real uncredited lead, the backdrop; and altogether good for a first-time feature-film maker. Could the reviewers stand a film with almost no sex or violence? Don't know. But the entry into this claustrophobic world is well worth the trouble.