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A couple weeks ago, my friend Garth cornered me in the office. He wanted to complain about the movie Sideways, which he had just seen. Apparently, he felt misled by all the critics' awards and thought he'd take it out on me, though my support for that film can hardly be called enthusiastic. But it was his reason for disliking it that caught my attention: "Why would I want to watch a bunch of losers?" I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I just sat and listened to him rant.

The ironic part of this conversation is that five minutes later Garth was talking about how much he liked Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, which features a much bigger loser than anyone in Sideways. No matter what you want to say about Howard Hughes (the main character in The Aviator), the fact is he lost everything--his money, his friends, and his sanity. Of course, Scorsese's film minimizes the last half of Hughes's life, choosing instead to emphasize his triumphs in moviemaking, aviation, and politics. And even his failures are presented with that incomparable Hollywood sheen that makes even emptiness seem attractive. Hughes may have been a loser in love, but who cares when he at least had flings with both Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner? He may have lost his entire fortune, but he sure dressed nice, traveled well, and hung out in the best nightclubs. Those are the sorts of losers Hollywood force-feeds us all the time, not only in movies but on entire TV networks like E! and MTv. Why anyone would possibly care about Donald Trump's wedding mystifies me, but care we apparently do.

But if you're tired of that worldview and you don't mind movies about losers, I'd suggest you check out A Love Song for Bobby Long. It stars the always radiant Scarlett Johansson (_Lost in Translation_) as Pursy, a teenage dropout who finds out that her estranged mother has died. Pursy lives in Panama City, Florida, so by the time she gets the message and makes her way to New Orleans, she's a day late for the funeral. What she discovers is the depressed and dissolute Bobby Long (John Travolta) sleeping in her mother's house.

Bobby Long is a former English professor who spends all his time drinking and hanging out with various acquaintances--people who also enjoy drinking, telling stories, and singing old folk songs. Staying with Bobby is Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht), a former student of Long's who's supposed to be writing the great American novel but mostly uses his musings as scraps for the fireplace. The two men are afraid that Pursy will kick them out of the house (which technically belongs to her), so they try to annoy her into going back to Florida. But this only stirs her stubborn side, and she decides to stay.

What follows is rather predictable. The trio will eventually bond, we will eventually find out why the great Bobby Long has descended into his current state (the tragic car accident rears its head again), and Pursy will eventually understand how her mother felt about her. But though the storyline might be familiar and even a bit worn, there's something gratifying in its telling. Much of this has to do with Johansson's fantastic performance. She's simply exquisite as a young woman taking control of her meager life, and it's so satisfying to watch her character grow up over the course of the film. As other critics have pointed out, there's nothing subtle about Travolta as Bobby Long, but I didn't mind his hamminess (Bobby Long is a nice contrast to the cocky roles he usually plays), and his quiet scenes with Johansson are gorgeous. Also gorgeous is Elliot Davis's cinematography, which bathes everything in a magic hour glow, even the scenes that take place indoors. One Christmas eve conversation in front of the fireplace is a triumph of lighting and perfect cheekbones.

At one point, Long declares that the best stories are the ones that concern "the misfits, the invisible people," and I think he's right, which is why I'm willing to overlook the cliches in the script (a favorite hangout is the Rock Bottom Lounge, for pete's sake). A Love Song for Bobby Long, like Sideways, doesn't entirely avoid the Hollywood trap, but it does present its characters with warts and all. It focuses on the mundane parts of their lives, if by mundane we mean how they get along (or don't) with old friends, new lovers and, most importantly, themselves. But no one here is winning a Nobel Prize, saving the world, or wasting millions of dollars, and so their small triumphs and failures appear unimportant to people like Garth. Or maybe they just hit too close to home.   

J. Robert Parks  2/6/2005