A LOVE SONG |
★★½☆☆
14 September 2022
A movie review of A LOVE SONG.
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Director: Max Walker-Silverman.
Starring: Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, John Way.
“Reckon you can still love something that ain’t there no more?” Faye (Dale Dickey)
Faye has hired a holiday caravan at a campsite in the middle of nowhere. A place so empty it is almost dystopian. Her wall calendar has a single reminder, with the word “Today”. One initially wondered whether it was her planned suicide date. The story chooses a different path. Faye is waiting for someone. Passing her time with the radio and two books on a shelf, on birds and the night sky. How is she not bored? I was. The drip-feeding of info feels padded, even with a lean runtime of 81 minutes. There are too many longueurs.
Starring: Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, John Way.
“Reckon you can still love something that ain’t there no more?” Faye (Dale Dickey)
Faye has hired a holiday caravan at a campsite in the middle of nowhere. A place so empty it is almost dystopian. Her wall calendar has a single reminder, with the word “Today”. One initially wondered whether it was her planned suicide date. The story chooses a different path. Faye is waiting for someone. Passing her time with the radio and two books on a shelf, on birds and the night sky. How is she not bored? I was. The drip-feeding of info feels padded, even with a lean runtime of 81 minutes. There are too many longueurs.
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Opening on Faye fishing lobster from a lake, her diet seems to consist not much more than crustaceans and coffee. (We all have weird holiday tastes in grub, right?) The dragged out wait creates a little tension. Her potentially being stood up, which is likely to be a big deal to her. Why else would Faye be in this isolated rural locale?
A few encounters with a holidaying couple, a family, and a mail carrier eke out proceedings. Pacing is lethargic. The desired visitor is a lover from long ago in her past. The anticipation is not palpable. A LOVE SONG is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio. We don’t get to wallow in the open vistas backdrop, instead we get claustrophobic tedium.
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Faye is nervous as to whether he will want to rekindle a spark from decades previous. Lito (Wes Studi) finally arrives. (Studi played Magua, the greatest antagonist in all of cinema in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS [1992]). A LOVE SONG at last moves up a gear. They circle each another. Reminiscing and gentle flirting. She expects him to share her bed. Instead, he pitches a tent. (Not a crude euphemism!)
Lito and Faye knew each other as kids. The place harkens back to a field trip in 1970 when each claims the other tried to kiss them. But still, why there? Prying eyes? Surely more anonymity in a city. Maybe where they currently reside is confined, and here is a sort of homecoming without the bad memories?
The cast are charismatic, but there is not enough for them to sink their teeth into. There are welcome ideas about regret and loneliness, but insightful observations are few. A LOVE SONG is a patience-testing romance.
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