Love Song for Bobby Long, A

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Captivating drama delivers literary flair and Louisiana music and great roles for a grizzled John Travolta and lovely Scarlett Johansson.

Film Threat Heidi Martinuzzi

Johansson is a stunningly charismatic actress. She gives Travolta a serious run for his money.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Among other things, the characters in A Love Song for Bobby Long really know how to turn a phrase, in itself a pleasure so rare it all but demands any flaws be forgiven.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The acting by Scarlett Johansson is so raw and sincere that the film leaves an impact despite its deficiencies.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Bobby Long can enchant you. It's a film that feels lived in, confident despite its conventions.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Rambling, meandering, likable.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie tries for tragedy and reaches only pathos, but then Bobby lost his chance to be a tragic hero by living this long in the first place.

Variety David Rooney

A pedigree cast elevates old-fashioned material and lackluster screenwriting.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The sole asset of "Bobby Long" is Johansson. Blossoming before our very eyes, she gives Pursy the combination of hope and determination that makes her journey worthwhile.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

An accomplished feature debut with stunning cinematography (by Elliot Davis), a jambalaya story line and yet another heart-stopping performance by Scarlett Johansson.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This is mainly the girl's story, though the numerous southern archetypes out of Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers (who's explicitly referenced) keep threatening to overwhelm her.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

It never jells. Primarily, it can't rise above two major weaknesses: a plangent, plaintive script and the inadequacies of John Travolta.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Travolta has dusted off his folksy Southern character from "Primary Colors" (one of his most acclaimed roles) and he has his moments with it.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

It's engaging and transparent at once.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Johansson is magnetic enough to make this batch of Southern-fried corn almost digestible.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Not terrible for a movie featuring John Travolta as a literature professor, but not too good either.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This smooth concoction goes down with a pleasant tingle and leaves behind a warm glow.

Premiere Peter Debruge

One of those slow-baked Southern character studies about taking an old flat tire of a man and finding some way to love him anyway.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's the stunning location photography of camera ace Elliot Davis that provides what the movie itself lacks: authenticity.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The movie's real star is the cinematographer, Elliot Davis -- his images carry more emotional freight than all the performances put together.

USA Today Mike Clark

Even in the junky potboilers that John Travolta has persisted in making since his "Pulp Fiction" comeback (all 5,000 of them), you usually get the sense that he's acting in his bailiwick.

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

John Travolta finds no artistic breathing-room in A Love Song for Bobby Long.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The result is an exercise in emoting that features one of the worst Southern accents in recent memory and does about as much to establish the actor's range as "Battlefield Earth."

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A poky dawdle of a Southern-style indie that would pass without notice but for John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The hokey solemnity of A Love Song for Bobby Long suggests "The Mundane Secrets of the Ya-Ya Brotherhood" or "The Notebook Goes to the Big Easy." The movie is another example of Hollywood's going soft and squishy when it goes South.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Macht is the best thing in A Love Song for Bobby Long, but his intelligent performance doesn't justify a tough, and very long, sit.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Works hard to give quirk a bad name.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Maybe they should have called A Love Song for Bobby Long something more appropriately descriptive, such as "When Actors Imitating Southern Characters Go Bad."

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Traffics in nearly every trite cliche of the "colorful" South one can think of, from its pseudo-Gothic aesthetic to its overripe dialogue.

Village Voice Ed Park

At least Macht emerges relatively unscathed from the mess, content to brood and mutter self-loathing observations while Johansson and (most painfully) Travolta spoon their Southern accents out of a jar and spread it all over the humid scenery.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

No movie that opens with the line "Time was never a friend to Bobby Long" could possibly be any good, and sure enough, A Love Song For Bobby Long lives down to its squibbed kickoff.