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Rating: rating

Adapting a novel for the screen is a tricky process, and unfortunately it's clearly one that neophyte writer/director Shainee Gabel has not mastered. Early on in A Love Song for Bobby Long, the overly literary voice-over ramblings of Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht) ("New Orleans is a siren of a city") begin to grate. Later in the film, someone asks Bobby Long (John Travolta), "Does every word outta your mouth have to be in character?" Bobby is a larger-than-life character who may have been fascinating on the page, but onscreen (embodied by Travolta), he and his story strain credulity. Appropriately bloated in this case but still over-the-top, Travolta can't muster the subtlety or grace to transcend the clichéd characterization of this cantankerous fallen Southern intellectual. On the positive side, Gabel does capture a certain gritty local flavor in her New Orleans locations. Macht is an appealing presence, and Scarlett Johansson brings a recognizably human soul to her portrait of Pursy. The actress has enough grit beneath that impossibly beautiful surface to make us believe that Pursy has had a difficult life and is more than a little bit lost. But the film itself is lost in translation. Full of grandiose literary references and tragic tall tales that are never dramatized, the story, despite an obvious red herring, makes its way to a predictable conclusion. Worse yet, it grows increasingly maudlin along the way, exemplified by one final, dreadful pan. Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide