Bobby (2006 film) Totally Explained

Everything about Bobby 2006 Film totally explained

Bobby is a Golden Globe Award-nominated historical drama film written and directed by Emilio Estevez. The film features an ensemble cast and is a fictional account set in Los Angeles, California on June 4th and June 5th, 1968. It concerns the lives of many people inside the Ambassador Hotel that day, and Senator Robert Kennedy's presence within the country during the late 1960's, through his bid for the Presidency, and at the hotel that night upon winning the California Primary. Bobby premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a seven-minute-long standing ovation. The film was released in New York and Los Angeles on November 17, 2006; wide release followed on Thanksgiving, November 23, 43 Years and a day after the John F. Kennedy assassination. Reviews from critics were mixed, but Bobby was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture.

Plot and characters

Bobby is a fictional account of events at the Ambassador Hotel on the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. The film recreates the ambience and themes of 1968 and invokes the hopes killed with Kennedy, by portraying this day-in-the-life of 24 fictional characters. It uses the ensemble plot device of the 1932 film Grand Hotel to tell the story (a film that's referenced in dialogue). Anthony Hopkins stars as the retired but ever-present doorman at The Ambassador Hotel. Harry Belafonte plays his retired friend, with whom he engages in games of chess. Lindsay Lohan and Elijah Wood appear as a couple opposed to the Vietnam War who get married so Wood's character can avoid being sent to Vietnam and possible combat duty, starting out just getting married, and ending in love.
Tim (Emilio Estevez) (who also wrote and directed the film) and Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) play married entertainers on the downside of their careers. David Krumholtz plays their agent, Phil. Sharon Stone plays a beautician married to the hotel's manager (William H. Macy), who clashes with his food and beverage manager (Christian Slater), who oversees a chef (Laurence Fishburne) and busboys (Freddy Rodriguez and Jacob Vargas). Other hotel staff portrayed are two phone switchboard operators, (Heather Graham, who is having an affair with Macy's character), and Joy Bryant. Helen Hunt and Martin Sheen (Estevez's father in real life) portray married socialites and Kennedy campaign donors staying at the hotel. Joshua Jackson (Emilio Estevez's co-star in the The Mighty Ducks trilogy), Nick Cannon, Brian Geraghty, and Shia LaBeouf play Kennedy staffers and volunteers; the latter two vie for the affection of a waitress played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead and are willingly distracted by a drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher). A Czechoslovakian reporter (Svetlana Metkina) finally gets the campaign staff to grant her an interview with Kennedy, but he dies before she can interview him.
In the end a small number of these characters, (Christian Slater, Helen Hunt, Elijah Wood, Brian Geraghty and Shia LaBeouf) are wounded in the shooting of RFK.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack is primarily a compilation of music from the 1960s. The two newly recorded tracks are "Louie Louie", sung by Demi Moore, and "Never Gonna Break My Faith", written by Bryan Adams, Elliot Kennedy and Andrea Remanda, and sung by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige.
The film's score is composed by Mark Isham.

Reviews

The film received mediocre and sharply mixed reviews, with an average of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes. Michael Medved gave the film Bobby three stars (out of four) calling the film "intriguing but imperfect." Medved added that "I can confirm that director/writer Emilio Estevez gets most of the feelings of the occasion right. But, the melodramatic, multi-character format proves somewhat uneven and distracting." Medved is unique amongst film critics in that he (at the time, a young Kennedy campaign volunteer) was present in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel when Senator Kennedy was assassinated. (External Link

) Richard Roeper of "Ebert & Roeper" said of "Bobby" that it featured "the most eclectic cast of the year. Estevez writes and directs with lots of passion, not so much sublety." Roeper closes by saying, "Estevez wants the movie to be on the level of a Robert Altman film like 'Nashville,' but falls short." (External Link

)
This movie got a seven-minute standing ovation at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Writer/director Emilio Estevez was nominated for the Golden Lion and won the Biografilm Award for "Bobby."
Lou Lomenick of The New York Post gave the film Bobby one star (out of four), saying that it was just another rip-off of a much better film, 1975's Nashville. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine ranked Bobby as among the worst movies of 2006, giving it one star (out of four) and calling it "trite fiction" and a work of "insipid ineptitude".(External Link

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Awards

Venice Film Festival

Nominated for a Golden Lion, 2006 - Emilio Estevez
Won Biografilm Award - Emilio Estevez

Hollywood Film Festival

Won Best Ensemble Cast

Won Best Breakthrough Actress - Lindsay Lohan Golden Globe Award

Nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama

Nominated for Best Original Song (for "Never Gonna Break My Faith" by Bryan Adams, Elliot Kennedy and Andrea Remanda). Screen Actors Guild Awards

Nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards

Won PFCS Award for Breakout Performance of the Year (2006) - Behind the Camera (Emilio Estevez)

Historical accuracy

While Bobby is a work of fiction, the film contains some historically accurate representations. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after midnight on June 5, 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel following his California Democratic primary election victory speech. In addition to Kennedy, five other people were shot, all of whom survived. Some valid political elements of his candidacy are shown.
   The title role is almost entirely played by RFK himself. Spliced between, throughout, and within many scenes, is a patchwork of archival footage, radio broadcasts and photos of his presidential campaign along with other images and sounds of the Kennedy family, news broadcasts, and other media clips from the 1960s.
   A few characters draw on the stories of real people. Tim Fallon (Emilio Estevez) and Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) may be based on José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney respectively. Both of them were present at RFK's assassination. However, most characters and their entwining plots are fictitious, representing late 60s archetypes. The five bystanders shot are all fictional.
   At the actual Kennedy assassination a bus boy, Juan Romero, cradled Bobby in his arms and placed a rosary in his hands. In the film adaptation the bus boy's name is changed to José Rojas (Freddy Rodríguez), but his role is still the same. José has tickets to the Los Angeles Dodgers game, where Don Drysdale is expected to set the record of six consecutive shutouts, but is obliged to work a double shift. Drysdale did in fact achieve his sixth shutout on June 4, 1968, and was congratulated by Kennedy in his speech just before he was shot. Bobby doesn't attempt to present the RFK assassination exactly as it occurred, nor does it attempt to explain the murder. The five real wounded bystanders are not portrayed, nor are most key people who were present (George Plimpton, Rosey Grier (When the movie is paused a man with facial hair tackling Sirhan Sirhan is visible), Rafer Johnson, Andrew West, James Scott Enyart, Thane Eugene Cesar, David Sanchez Morales, Paul Sharaga, Sandy Serrano, etc.) There is no treatment of Sirhan Sirhan's background or motives, whether he acted alone, nor anything to support or refute alternate or conspiracy theories to the assassination.

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