Love Song for Bobby Long

If you are looking for a love story where boy meets girl and falls in love, pass this one by. If you are looking for some sweet story about a girl that moves into a house with two alcoholics and charms them into totally changing their lives, you’re going to be disappointed.

And that’s what I liked about this movie. It wasn’t the sweet child changes the curmugeon story that I thought it was going to be. The men change, but not that much, for reasons I expected.

A possible alternative title could have been Love Song for Lorraine, because that’s who brought the three of these unlikely people together. Lorraine was Purslane’s (Scarlett Johannson) mother. When she discovers her mother has died, she comes home to the funeral only to find out she’s one day too late. She finds two men (John Travolta and Gabriel Macht) living in her mother’s house who tell her the house is willed to the three of them. Early on in the film, it is discovered this is a lie and they are only allowed to stay in the house for one year.

In the beginning, Purslane is a hard, bitter young woman concerning her mother who left her to be raised by her grandmother. But she is never cruel. It’s more of a “that’s life” attitude. That’s was one of the things I liked about the film, the characters’ attitude about life. Like most people in real life, they accepted their plight until something better comes along to change them. It's their kneejerk response to life that I find realistic enough to make this movie believable and likeable.

Despite the fairy tale ending, which did have an unexpected twist, I enjoyed it.