Release Year: 2004 Rating: R Duration: 119 minutes Director: Shainee Gabel Producer: John Penotti, Tim Williams, Bob Yari, David Lancaster, R. Paul Miller, John M Penotti, Paul Miller Distributor: Lions Gate Films
Upon hearing of her mother's death, jaded teenage loner Purslane Hominy Will (Scarlett Johansson) returns to New Orleans for the first time in years, ready to reclaim her childhood home. Expecting to find her late mother's house abandoned, Pursy is shocked to discover that it is inhabited by two of her mother's friends: Bobby Long (John Travolta), a former literature professor, and his young protégé, Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht). These broken men, whose lives took a wrong turn years before, have been firmly rooted in the dilapidated house for years, encouraged only by Lawson's faltering ambitions to write a novel about Bobby Long's life. Having no intention of leaving, Pursy, Bobby Long and Lawson are all forced to live together. Yet as time passes, their tenuous, makeshift arrangement unearths a series of buried personal secrets that challenges their bonds, and reveals just how inextricably their lives are intertwined.
cast
Scarlett Johansson as Pursy Will
quote
Lawson Pines: You know you eat like shit?
Pursy Will: You drink too much.
Lawson Pines: Okay.
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.
