A Love Song for Bobby Long

While not a recent film, A Love Song for Bobby Long is both timeless and unique.

It is, and always will be, one of my all-time favorite movies. Largely due to the authentic and engaging acting performances by Scarlett Johansson, Gabriel Macht, and John Travolta (whose later work never appealed much to me before this). But of course, there's a lot more to love about this movie than just its great acting.

The settings all overflow with love and longing for the beautiful city of New Orleans and its magnificent jazz scene. Cinematographer Elliot Davis matches the intensity and dedication of the actors with his raw imagery. The romance of the city as well as its rustic character are portrayed without the use of exuberant hipster filters; the images speak for themselves and need little enhancing. The timelessness of this movie goes beyond its qualities as a film classic, and extends to the slow and calm ease with which it tells its story. Time moves differently in New Orleans, allowing for riverside guitar playing, undisturbed reading, intellectual conversations and literature quotations.

Purslane Hominy Will (Scarlett Johansson) learns of her estranged mother’s death and makes her way to her house in New Orleans. She arrives there only to miss her mother’s funeral and share her inheritance with two alcoholic strangers, Bobby Long and Lawson Pines (John Travolta and Gabriel Macht). When Purslane decides to stay and claim her right to (a third of) her mother’s house, a difficult friendship arises where one seemed improbable. The movie is based on the novel Off Magazine Street, by Ronald Everett Caps. Grayson Caps (Caps' son) wrote 6 songs for the movie's soundtrack and appears briefly in the film.

If it had not been for the heart-stirring soundtrack, the moving performances, or the quickly acquired love for a city I had never been to, I am sure the mention and crucial role of Carson McCuller’s novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter would have won me over either way. The novel had been in my top three of favorite novels years before a link had been established with the fictional character Bobby Long. The novel, with its cheesy-sounding title, is a breathtaking story of misfits and underdogs, of love and friendship, of being and feeling small, and of growing up. While clearly no adaptation of the novel, its vintage and unencumbered feel, belonging to a much simpler time before computers and even basic technology, was transferred to the screen. None of the scenes in this movie require or are hindered by technological gadgets. Stripped back to the basic essentials, nothing is left but people, music and nature.

The predictability of the eventual plot-twist is a non-issue. The story focuses not on the outcome, but on the process. Its inclusion of tiny details give the movie a higher class all its own. A familiar reaction and concern is shown when Lawson opens the bathroom door and quickly closes it again after realizing Purslane is standing in front of him, wearing only a towel. After the door hits the lock, Purslane checks her reflection in the mirror, assuming the pose in which Lawson must have seen her, gauging what he saw. This short and insignificant scene is an elegant indication of the level of depth; the characters are marked by their insecurities and personal baggage and we get a much deeper connection with them than we would in any other narrative.

While its simplicity and beauty left me teary-eyed several times, A Love Song for Bobby Long still qualifies as a feel-good movie. Even when watching it for the 9^th time since its release, this movie can do more for me than most, providing a short-lived but satisfying peace of mind while also making me long for similar surroundings and a New Orleans-fictional world where time seems to be equally fictional.