A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)

Purslane Hominy Will, a jaded teenage loner, returns to New Orleans, the city of her childhood, upon hearing of her mother’s death. Expecting to find her mother’s house abandoned, Pursy is instead shocked to discover that it is inhabited by two men whose lives took a wrong turn years before. Friends of her mother, Bobby Long, a former literature professor, and his protege/biographer Lawson Pines have been firmly rooted in the dilapidated house for years with no intention of leaving. When all three stand their ground, they are forced to try to live together, setting the stage for the story of three people and their unlikely home. As time passes, Bobby, Lawson and Pursy are surprised by the secrets they discover about themselves and their histories, revealing the seemingly small choices that have inextricably intertwined their lives. Shainee Gabel about her movie: «A Love Song for Bobby Long was born out of a deep affection for the city of New Orleans, a city of great beauty and darkness both in reality and fiction. The story is set amid the haze some of us create between reality and fiction in order to survive; a place where we can escape. That escape can provide reinvention and delusion in equal parts. The character of Bobby Long is intended to personify New Orleans, both its promise and its rapaciousness. It is not the tourists’ city of Mardi Gras, but the everyday New Orleans of corner bars and the characters and stories that they nurture. The literary allure of New Orleans gradually seduced Bobby away from the routine and pain of his real life as he became profoundly lost in the novels his university lectures explored. He yearned to become a story, a legend, a song, positive that his destiny called. We meet Bobby on the other side of that decision and discover a world where people are quite comfortable in their denial of what they’ve lost» -Shainee Gabel-