Assassination Vacation

Well-acted nostalgia trumps political history in Bobby.

by Michael Atkinson

It's a miracle that anyone still grieves for the Kennedys' Camelot — after daddy Joe's candidacy-purchasing habits have been long-aired, after JFK's responsibility for the destruction of Vietnam and the terrorist assaults on Cuba have become simply matters of documented fact, after Oliver Stone's hagiographic liturgy has faded from the Blockbuster shelves. But this is Hollywood, where naive dreams do not fade away but are instead fueled and fanned and immortalized on celluloid. The newest black-velvet painting dedicated to the era's crushed hopes, Bobby, is the "personal project" of certain middle-tier Beverly Hills liberals — namely, the Estevez-Sheens — and it is flush with the sort of flag-draped idealism that the industry usually mocks when it is voiced at the figurative gravesides of John Wayne, Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan.

KENNEDY CLANGOR: Demi Moore (right, with Emilio Estevez) is an oasis in Bobby's cacophony.

The movie has its uses; writer-director Emilio Estevez massages our bleeding hearts with miles of still-shocking news footage from the dark side of the '60s, a time when riots born from racial fury or anti-war activism broke out in nearly every major city in the land, and several more than once. (Those were the days; try to imagine riots in the era of YouTube, iPods, pay-per-view and MoveOn.org.) But, pumped with a swoony, patriotic soundtrack, Bobby exudes the dullard innocence of a child; it might as well take place in a nursery. Instead, it's set entirely in L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968, beginning with a false fire alarm in the pre-dawn hours and marching steadily toward the instant, not long after midnight, when Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, celebrating a win in the California primary, is shot and killed.

Estevez goes whole-hog recreating the hotel's period details, and at times he seems more serious about elegizing the service staff of the Ambassador in the '60s — when they knew how to treat you right! — than his eponymous political martyr. Seen only from behind and in TV clips, RFK himself is not a meaningful presence; neither is Sirhan Sirhan (appearing late and with no backfill), nor George Plimpton and Rosey Grier, both of whom leapt on the gunman. Rather, Estevez has summoned the ghost of Grand Hotel — the early talkie is quoted explicitly — and constructs a dozen or so fictional narratives to help fill out the day. Young bride Lindsay Lohan revs up to charity-marry Elijah Wood and keep him from 'Nam combat; retired doorman Anthony Hopkins wanders around musing on old age with fellow coot Harry Belafonte; weathered chanteuse/lush Demi Moore makes life hell for emasculated hubby Estevez; bigoted kitchen manager Christian Slater gets fired by philandering boss William H. Macy, who's dallying with switchboard girl Heather Graham; campaigners Shia LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty buy acid from dealer Ashton Kutcher and trip out all day; materialistic marrieds Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt work out some vague anxieties; busboy Freddy Rodríguez learns about prejudice and struggles with what to do with his Dodgers tickets, and so laboriously on. What's this movie called again?

With so much of so little importance going on, Estevez can visit each plotline for only a minute or two at a time; there's no sense of accumulation or drama. It's a pity, because everyone — even Lohan — has brought their best game. In particular, Moore is a ferocious knockout as an embittered post-celebrity — no Method required here — and the one, all-too-brief scene she shares with an almost unrecognizable Sharon Stone, as Macy's sensible and betrayed hairdresser wife, is a breath-holding wonder. Moore's nightclub diva is stewed and rancorous after a marital face-off; Stone's working girl, from under a hood of mascara and bouffant locks, slowly, warily sheds her fight-or-flight response and musters unexpected sympathy. It's the best acting either woman has ever committed to film, and suggests that Bobby would've been better as a charged two-person playlet restricted to that hotel salon.

As it is, it's a lullaby for the short-attention-span Democrat, which means it can be at once endearingly hopeful and risibly silly. History, however, helplessly acquires the mantle of myth the farther we get from it — the Age of Aquarius as a time of almost nonstop assassinations and flaming cities and police-clubbed citizenry, replayed endlessly on TV. The Kennedy-eulogy crowd cannot be blamed for at least conjecturing that the two brothers (if not the surviving sibling, Ted) could've changed the course of the public conflict, and things since may've been different. But it's mere nostalgia, in a day and age of dire political hollowness that could instead profit from a discourse in genuine principle and public service.

(m_atkinson@citypaper.net)

Bobby

Written and directed by Emilio EstevezA Weinstein Company releaseOpens Thursday at Ritz theaters