Bobby (2006)

[tabuno]

The question about Bobby isn't whether or not it will be a big hit (this gigantic star-studded) movie is bound to raise eyebrows, but the timing of its premiere release just weeks after the 2006 general elections.

[oscar jubis]

There is absolutely NADA in the resume of Mr. Emilio Estevez that indicates he has the skill and talent to write and direct a good movie. Yet apparently executive producer Harvey Weinstein is telling everyone in Hollywood that Estevez's film about the day Robert Kennedy was killed has "Oscar potential". The result could range from a complete embarrasment to a major breakthrough for Mr. Estevez. Can't wait for reports from Venice, where the film will have its world premiere.

[oscar jubis]

It's been twenty years since Emilio Estevez made his debut as a writer/director. The results have never surpassed the competent or serviceable level. I think it was fair of me to doubt Estevez had the talent and skill to succeed at such an ambitious venture. A character brings up the Oscar-winner Grand Hotel (1932) in conversation. Like that MGM classic, Bobby features an all-star cast and it's set entirely in a hotel, the Ambassador in Los Angeles. Yet Estevez's film has much more up its sleeve than Grand Hotel's rather hokey entertainment. It's something more along the lines of Robert Altman's Nashville, a large ensemble painting a picture of America at a crucial place and time and concluding with a political assassination.No easy task to pull off. It's such a pleasant surprise to find that, to a large extent, Bobby meets its lofty goals.

Bobby takes place on June 4th, 1968, the day after Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol. It was the day of the California presidential primary, the day Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale attempted a record sixth consecutive shutout game and, lamentably, the day Robert F. Kennedy met the same fate as his older brother. All of the characters are working or staying at the hotel where the assassination will take place. Our knowledge of what's about to happen to the unsuspecting characters (and to the whole nation they represent) contributes to a heady, portentous mood. This little-do-they-know factor serves as a type of connective tissue to the multiple narrative threads. There's a hotel manager (William H. Macy) cheating on his hairstylist wife (Sharon Stone) with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham) who's beginning to realize this affair is a dead-end. There's a girl (Lindsey Lohan) about to sacrifice perfect-wedding dreams to marry a classmate (Elijah Wood) so he won't get sent to Vietnam. There's a Mexican busboy with Dodgers tickets who's forced to work double-shift, and his angry and proud buddy. Two of Bobby's best scenes involve the busboys and the head cook (Laurence Fishburne) who attempts to serve as their guide and mentor. Demi Moore is wonderful as an alcoholic singing star designated to introduce the candidate, while her powerless husband (Estevez) worries she'll embarrass herself. Some of the subplots are undeniably less compelling, but provide needed context and humor, and serve to provide a more comprehensive view of late-60s America. There's a couple of retired gents (Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte) waxing nostalgic about Old Hollywood and two young campaign volunteers who stumble into their first acid trip when they're supposed to be knocking on doors.

Truth be told, there are some rough spots in Estevez's script, but Bobby exceeded my expectations. I was deeply moved by the plight of its characters, some of which manage to achieve nuance and dimensionality in the limited acreen time they are afforded. Sharon Stone practically disappears behind this role, becoming almost unrecognizable. I'd be very disappointed if she fails to gain some type of recognition for her work here. Bobby was shot with an expertly displaced steadycam. Its texture is somewhat grainy, like many 60s movies. When the film mixes this fictional material with newsreel footage, the transition is smooth, almost natural. Estevez achieves cinematic nirvana during the final sequences. First, RFK on the campaign trail scored to Simon's "Sounds of Silence" feels like an elegy. Then, a brilliantly edited finale, in which the tragic events are overlaid with one of Mr. Kennedy's most stirring speeches, is pure Grand Opera. The speech's contemporary relevance is quite revealing. Bobby recalls last year's Good Luck and Good Night in its ability to draw parallels between the state of the nation during a specific past and our current maladies. But Bobby is infinitely more emotionally powerful. A devastating portrait of a generation whose hopes were dashed in one night.

[Johann]

Emilio was crying at the TIFF press conference.
He was surrounded by his cast and he was very emotional over the film's release, message and the fact that it got made at all.

[oscar jubis]

His reaction makes sense to me. Emilio, who met RFK as a little boy, has created a highly emotional and affectionate movie. It's a sincere and effective tribute to the man and those who placed their hopes on his getting elected. The template is Nashville and do I have to tell you Bobby is inferior than Altman's state-of-the-nation extravaganza. Then again, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle is right when he says that "Bobby has more heart than any Altman picture". No wonder several print critics have heaped scornful cynicism upon Bobby.

[mouton]

BOBBY
Written and directed by Emilio Estevez


Can’t you imagine it? Frazzled, sitting around in a housecoat at a motel outside of Los Angeles, writer/director/actor, Emilio Estevez, puts out his cigarette and picks up the phone.

“Can I get an outside line?” Moments later, he dials the number and swallows nervously while he waits for her to pick up.

Finally, the phone is answered but it isn’t her. “Whadup,” says the man’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Uh, hi. Is, uh, is Demi around?”

“Yeah, hold up.” He drops the phone clumsily to the floor. The sound of his bellowing can be heard getting more faint as he walks further away from the dangling telephone. “Baaaaaaabe! Phone!”

Emilio is waiting. This isn’t unusual, he thinks to himself. We’ve had some good times. There’s no reason why I should be nervous. He hears the phone being handled.

“Hello?”

There’s the voice he’s been waiting to hear. “Demi, hi. It’s Emilio.”

“Rodriguez?”

“No. No, it’s Emilio Estevez.”

“Jesus! Emilio! How the hell are you?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. “What has it been already?” Again, she doesn’t wait. “I heard you moved to some motel to become a hermit or something.”

“Well, not exactly. I am at a hotel but I’m writing.”

“Writing? Wow. That’s … Wow. God, you haven’t written a movie since ‘Men at Work’.”

“Yeah, I know. This one’s different though, better, much. I’m writing a movie about the Ambassador Hotel, on the day that Bobby Kennedy was shot.”

“Uh-huh.”

He was hoping for a little more but this would have to do. “I’m having a bit of a hard time getting the money together to make it though.”

“Oh, honey, I’m not looking for a project to invest in right now.”

“No, no. I’m not asking you for any money. There’s a part I thought you might like. And I figured if I get enough people on board, the funding might come a little easier.”

“A part? Hmmm. Well, who else is doin’ it?”

“A few people. Heather Graham, Bill Macy, Helen Hunt, Larry Fishburn, Sharon Stone.”

“Wow. Anybody else?” He could tell she was coming around.

“Uh, yeah. Tony Hopkins, Christian Slater, Dad.”

“Aw, I love your father. What’s the part?” He knew he could tell her almost anything now. It didn’t matter. He had her.

“You would play Virginia Fallon. She’s a popular singer who frequently plays the hotel. She’s a total drunk too.” He hesitates for a moment. “And she’s concerned that the public doesn’t really care so much for her anymore, y’know, because of her … age.” He waits for it but it’s oddly quiet.

“Ageing, hmmm.” Suddenly, All Emilio could hear were the teenagers hitting the ice machine down the hall. Then, she finally spoke. “I bet you I could get an Oscar out of this. An actress not afraid to play her age, or at least close to it. And a drunk! I’m as good as there!”

“Yeah! There’s this great scene between you and Sharon. She is going to play the hotel stylist. She’s doing your hair and your nails. You’re drunk. She’s tired. And the two of you just talk about how nobody wants you when you’re a woman of a certain age.”

“Yeah, that sounds great but I have the better lines, right? I would hate to see her walk away with my nod.”

“Demi, please. You know she’s got nothing on you.” He didn’t know he could be such a convincing liar. Even more so in retrospect, given that Stone is the only actor featured in BOBBY to be getting any Oscar attention.

“Aw, Emilio, thanks. I’ll have to check my schedule but I should be good. So, what’s the whole thing about?” she asks after the fact.

“Well, it’s really about the death of all the necessary social and political change that Bobby represented. The last 15 minutes are gonna have everybody ballin’ their eyes out. Bobby gives his speech at the hotel and then gets shot in the kitchen. People won’t know what hit ‘em. I mean, they’ll know it’s coming but it’s still gonna be rough.”

The level of excitement in his voice is like that of a young boy. Demi is familiar with this enthusiasm. She is also wise enough to know to scale it back. “Ok but what about the hour and half that comes before the end? What happens there?”

Emilio snaps out of his zone. “Well, stuff obviously.” He hears the defensive tone in his voice. “I mean, there are so many people in this movie and so many hotel guests. It’s got so many possibilities for different things going on.”

“Alright, that’s interesting. It’s got an Altman-esque quality to it. And I guess all the different stories somehow connect with each other or have some deeper level of significance. It will be an indirect criticism on today’s society, right?”

He had not thought about bridging the divide between the centuries for his wide variety of characters. He always thought Kennedy himself would take care of that. Having the cast involved in topical and symbolic plots complicates things. Having them involved in more random, dramatic situations was a lot easier. When he thought of tying everything together in other ways than just through Kennedy’s assassination, it made him feel that his script might be weak. He didn’t like to think about that. He also didn’t want to admit it.

“Of course. Plus I managed to sign that Lindsay Lohan everyone talks about and that guy who played Frodo. There will be so many faces in this film, people won’t know where to look. And I’m planning all this moving camera aesthetic. People will be so dizzy, a good dizzy of course. And there are the costumes! I’m thinking big hair for you.”

“God, I love big hair. Alright, I’ll have my agent call you, on one condition.”

“Name it. I really want you in this.”

“Can you put Ashton in the picture? I need to separate him from his PS3 for a while. Y’know, give the kids a chance to play.”

“I need a stoner drug dealer part filled still. Do you think he can do that?”

“Yes, I think a stoner would be fine,” she said flatly.

“Great, than it’s settled. One last thing … Do you think you could give Bruce a call?”

“Don’t push it, Emilio.”

The call now made, Emilio sits back down to the blank page in his typewriter and stares out the window.

[tabuno]

Oscar's December 2, 2006 commentary on this movie brings back to life the essence of the film of the day surrounding the death of Bobby Kennedy. He captures the film in print as does Emilio captures that day and his characters on the big screen.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks Tabuno. You were right to expect Bobby to be a hit, given its all-star cast (at $11 million gross it can't be called a hit). What we couldn't foresee was distributors MGM and Weinstein Company doing such a lousy job promoting the film.

First, they confounded expectations because the publicity material made Bobby look like what it isn't, a RFK biopic.
Then, they failed to market the film to that most important segment of the audience: teens and college kids. Any movie with Ashton Kutcher, Lindsay Lohan, Shia Labeouf, and Elijah Wood has great potential to appeal to the youth market.

[tabuno]

Bobby's trailer was compelling only for its use of the multitude of its all-star cast and little else. I went to see Bobby, fairly late, for the cast of actors out of curiousity though I had to force myself a bit. The trailer didn't really make the storyline interesting and I didn't really know what to expect - I went into the movie with very little anticipation, no excitement. What was brilliant was how the many well known actors, actresses performed beyond their usual typical cast-type.

[oscar jubis]

No wonder they got nominated for Best Ensemble by the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild. Sharon Stone particularly fascinating here, I thought.

[Chris Knipp]

Emilio Estevez: Bobby (2006)


The wrong moment and the wrong style?

Review by Chris Knipp

Emilio Estevez’s Bobby is a well-meaning but lackluster Altmanesque piece organized around people at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles up to and just after the June 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy, who that evening had just won the California democratic presidential primary. Even Altman didn’t always succeed, and what he did wasn’t easy. That began with the difficult choice of what setting and moment to choose for his interweaving of characters and incidents and voices. It’s certainly logical – if a bit naïve – to associate 1968 and the other Kennedy with a more idealistic world than the one we’re in now; but Estevez’s basic premise is still questionable to begin with: the characters who happen to be at the hotel on that evening aren’t going through anything from what we see of them that’s especially interesting. A lot of the time it seems the only reason we’re watching them is that they’re going to be in the hotel kitchen when Bobby Kennedy gets shot. That certainly isn’t enough to make us care about them.

Estevez may have wanted to present a microcosm of American hopes and aspirations or show how things went wrong at a pivotal moment; but the writing isn’t sharp enough to whip things into a coherent whole – or to provide the many name actors, hard as some of them are trying, with scenes that sparkle or stick in the mind. The movie’s pulse rate rarely rises and at under two hours, the movie still feels very long.

It’s the few minority characters who generate the most emotion. There’s good interaction between a black cook (Laurence Fishburne) and Latino workers (who are never seen doing their actual jobs) including stoical busboy José (Freddy Rodriguez); and one is touched by seeing an “angry” young black Kennedy campaign worker named Dwayne (Nick Cannon) have a brief moment of enthusiasm and recognition that turns to terrible despair when the assassination occurs. Alcoholic women and older men in downbeat or valedictory situations are less well served, perhaps because they emphatically represent no hope or course of action that relates to RFK or the aspirations Estevez associates with him.

To call this “ensemble” acting falsely implies skillful interweaving of subplots such as the real Altman of Nashville, Short Cuts, or Gosford Park could pull off so brilliantly. "Ensemble" doesn't just mean bringing together a lot of name actors. Estevez’s characters and their dialogue tend to be stereotypical. He works mostly with pairs of people who rarely connect interestingly with another group. A young couple (Lindsey Lohan, Elijah Wood) marry so the boy won’t get sent to Vietnam; two young male white campaign workers (Brian Geraghty, Shia LaBeouf) get high on acid and “waste” their day, thanks to Ashton Kutcher, horrible as a hippie drug dealer (he does Seventies, not Sixties, remember?) A drunken entertainer (Demi Moore) who's abusive with her husband (Estevez himself) connects with a burned-out, boozy beautician (Sharon Stone). Estevez’s dad Martin Sheen plays somebody important, helping his wife (Helen Hunt), who’s somebody too, buy black shoes. So what? The hypocritical hotel manager (William H. Macy) sleeps with a hotel phone operator and in a spirit of self-conscious liberalism fires the kitchen manager (Christian Slater) for exhibiting racist attitudes. It’s clear Estevez cares about the politics and moral contradictions of the time, but most of the time his characters don’t seem important or interrelated enough.

One trouble, for his Altman aspirations, is that Estevez doesn’t succeed in making the hotel seem like a living organism – as the hostelry does in the kitsch classic and Garbo vehicle Grand Hotel, which he makes the mistake in alluding to. (Partly this is because the Kennedy team have nothing special to do with the hotel.) So much was going on in America at this moment; only a fraction of it got into this picture. The period is evoked well physically but less well in language. A small instance: the bride-to-be says she’s “okay with” marrying her young man to save him from combat. But in those days people weren’t “okay with” things; things were “okay with” people. She would have said marrying him was “okay with” her. “I’m okay with” is a quite recent pattern of speech.

Actual footage of Bobby campaigning, of his California primary win reported on TV that evening, and of the chaos after the shooting, are skillfully woven in Bobby by Richard Chew; but resolutions of the various subplots are too rushed under the extreme pressure of the intense tragic finale. Bobby’s final minutes use as voiceover a speech RFK gave about violence. If this is meant to be an indication of the president we might have had, it fails. At 43 Robert Kennedy, after living in the shadow of his fallen brother, still seemed well meaning but unformed, and here we find him philosophizing rather than providing a concrete program. His speech condemns violence as a culture or way of life rather than seeking its causes; his conclusion that America needs a “cleansing” of this scourge carries an ominous suggestion of possible repression that reminds one of his authoritarian leanings.

To show how a cross section of Americans might have related to this time and this man would have required more space or more depth – and better writing. The tragic, chaotic finale seems a gratuitous payoff that’s sad without being meaningful in terms of the whole film. Bobby seems to express a sentimentalized doomsday mentality, as if to say “we had a chance but we lost it.” Maybe, or maybe not. If Estevez indeed had a chance here, he lost it too – though you can't blame him for trying.