Love Field

An obsessed beautician heads for DC when JFK is assassinated. Along the way, she loses her husband, but finds something within herself she never knew was there; courage and fortitude.

Fraught with dangers only our parents remember, this film shows you what the US was like back in the late 50's, early 60's. It also teaches us that we haven't changed that much, as a nation, in the last 50 years.

Michelle Pfeiffer, Dennis Haysbert, and Stephanie McFadden endear with their honesty in this gripping drama by Jonathan Kaplan (Project X, the Firm, and Bad Girls). The performances are heartening and lends us hope that things genuinely CAN improve in the future. Not necessarily that they will, but that it is possible, should we apply our hearts to the problem.

This is a great film, though you have to be in the right mood for it.

It rates an 8.2/10 from...

the Fiend :.

The actors are better than the story.

Set against the Kennedy assassination, the plot here deals with a rather simple-minded woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) from Dallas who is obsessed with the Kennedy family and especially Jackie. She's also unhappily married to a brutish guy (Brian Kerwin). She runs away from home and boards a bus to Washington to attend the Kennedy funeral.

Aboard the bus she chats with a black man (Dennis Haysbert) who is traveling with his small and oddly silent daughter. She never shuts up. He reluctantly responds to her endless chatter. The bus lumbers through racist America until there is an accident and the local cops start nosing around trying to get the details.

Right off they're suspicious of Haysbert and why he seems to be traveling with a white woman. To make natters worse, the ninny makes a phone calls when she discovers bruises on the child. That sets in motion a series of events with the travelers on the run from the cops.

While the man and woman learn things about themselves, their eyes are also opened to the realities of the American South in that pre-Civil Rights era.

The most annoying thing here, aside from the plot holes and implausibility of the story is the Pfeiffer character. If she has a Jackie obsession, why does she have platinum blonde hair a la Marilyn Monroe? She is a beautician after all. Seems like she'd had dyed her hair darker, not lighter.

Pfeiffer and Haysbert are good. Louise Latham is also good as the rural mother who takes them in while they are on the lam.

"Love Field" was a film that came and went without much fanfare. It was shown on cable recently, so we decided to take a chance with it. Jonathan Kaplan makes an impression with his unusual take on the subject of the race relations in the United States of the early 60s that pays a great deal of respect to the era in which it takes place. The film shows how things were in this country in the years where segregation was still enforced in the land.

If you haven't watched the movie, please stop reading now.

Lurene, the young woman at the center of the story was in awe of Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. The former first lady had such magnetic quality and charisma that it was easy to see why she was so admired and imitated by all women in America in the early 60s. After all, Mrs. Kennedy was royalty in a country that supposedly has no class differences. Jackie's sense of style was imitated by most women; after all, she was an elegant, vibrant and youthful woman who all wanted to adore.

The story presents a situation that rings false from the beginning. Lurene was only a step above of what would be considered white trash, therefore, her relationship with Paul Cater and Jonell, is hard to believe because of the woman's background. Lurene is kind hearted, but one wonders to what extend would someone in her station in life would have done in a real situation like the director presents in the picture.

As far as what we watch in the film, making allowances for Lurene's open mind and understanding about segregation and discrimination, the movie is easy to watch. In pairing Michelle Pfeiffer with a handsome Dennis Haysbert, who has already been seen in a similar role in "Far from Heaven", one can see why these two lost souls were attracted to one another. We can understand Lurene's sense of decency, as well as Paul's falling for Lurene when reason and logic would tell him to stay away from this white woman. Even in the big Northern cities where racial discrimination was not as blatant as in the deep South, integrated couples were a rarity in the early 60s.

Michelle Pfeiffer makes a compelling Lurene, the girl who is a decent human being. This role is a stretch for Ms. Pfeiffer, an actress not associated with dramatic parts that make such demands on her. Dennis Haysbert is good as the troubled Paul, a man that only wants to do his best for this daughter he is bringing back to Philadelphia. Stephanie McFadden is sweet as the young girl who can't comprehend what's going on around her. Finally, Louise Latham, as Mrs. Enright, is the only one that shows any decency to the situation in which she gets involved against her will.

While the movie doesn't break any grounds in racial relations, at least it has the courage to show how wrong segregation was and how prevalent it was in the United States.

Michelle Pfeiffer plays a middle-class 60s housewife who idolizes Jackie O. When JFK is assassinated, she leaves her husband and road trips to his funeral to show solidarity with her icon. Along the way she meets a black man (Dennis Haysbert) and his young daughter. She immediately befriends them but realizes they are hiding a secret. Soon she is swept up in their lives and finds herself on the run from the FBI.

This is the best performance I've ever seen by Pfeiffer. She is practically unrecognizable--her southern accent is perfect and her Jackie O-inspired look is classic. She adds a welcome dose of humor to a film that is often emotionally overwhelming. The movie alternates between adorable and disturbing, but never gets too extreme either way. The plot gets a bit contrived at times, but the movie serves to question the comfort of routine middle-class existence, so it works. I am surprised this is not a well-known film. It is one of the best ones I've seen from the early 90s.

My Rating: 8/10.

Michelle Pfeiffer's Oscar nominated performance anchors 1992's LOVE FIELD, a surprisingly moving marriage between character study and buddy movie that draws the viewer in with the draw of vividly human characters involved in a somewhat over the top story that manages to hold our attention due to the extreme likability of the two main characters. Pfeiffer plays a Dallas beautician named Lurene in 1963, who is so devastated by the assassination of JFK that she decides, against her husband's wishes, to travel to Washington DC to attend JFK's funeral and, en route, befriends a black man (Dennis Haysbert)traveling with his daughter, and the relationship that develops between the two when circumstances find the three of them on the run together. The story taken on an unexpected richness because these two people are part of the racially turbulent 1960's and because of the beautifully evocative performances from the stars. Pfeiifer, in particular, gives us a sad and slightly pathetic creature, wearing a platinum blonde Mariyln Monroe wig that seems to represent her desire to be someone else, her Lurlene is slightly ditzy, bored,lonely, but with a heart as big as all outdoors and the quiet dignity that Haysbert brings to his character in this tense situation is on target. Brian Kerwin also scores in the most significant role of his career as Lurene's abusive brute of a husband, but it is the performances and chemistry of the two stars that make this journey a memorable one.