Metacritic reviews

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.