Bobby (2006)

Written by Emilio Estevez, Bobby tells the story of the lives of 22 people who were in and around the Ambassador Hotel at the time of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. In its form, the film is similar to Crash or Babel, it tells a series of interconnected stories which draw together a particular American experience. It’s not a film about Robert Kennedy. It’s not a film about the political motivations of Sirhan Sirhan, nor even a campaign story.

Readers of the other blog I write (oh ho ho, one of many, etc) will know that I am slightly taken with Bobby Kennedy. To me, he embodied the potential of American politics during the 1960s, and was able to create a vision of the future which far surpassed that of his brother, JFK. Kennedy was a reluctant politician, committed to fulfilling the promise of his brother’s presidency, while holding progressive views which outstripped his more pragmatic sibling.

The vignettes within Bobby are real and full of pathos. Lindsay Lohan plays a teenage girl marrying a boy from her high school class so that he can avoid the draft. In conversation with her hair-stylist for the day (played by an almost unrecognizable Sharon Stone), Lohan’s character observes that she would marry any boy she could, if it would stop them from going to Vietnam. William H. Macy plays a philandering hotel manager who sacks his racist employee (Christian Slater) after discovering that Latino workers had been prevented from leaving the workplace to vote. Anthony Hopkins plays a retired doorman who continues to return to the hotel he worked at, his life defined by his persona there. The characters here find themselves at a cross-roads, making decisions which transcend the political process, but which are informed by the spirit of the times, while reminding us that a public optimism cannot change each and every life.

More practically, there are some things about this film that might bother some people. For a start, it’s not narrative driven. It seeks to create a sense of what it was like to be American (from a range of experiences) at that time in history. This makes some people crazy. Secondly, it’s highly political. There is no doubt that Estevez’s own activist background and that of his father, Martin Sheen, have played a strong role in both what this movie portrays but also how it looks and feels. Estevez met Kennedy when he was four years old and was just six when Kennedy was assassinated, and those with a more critical eye than me may argue that the picture he presents of Kennedy is uncritical and rose-coloured.

News reel footage is woven into the stories, showing Kennedy’s commitment to reversing environmental damage, improving the lives of poverty-stricken Americans, and advancing the cause of civil rights in the United States. Even as a long-time admirer of Kennedy’s political activism (I actually have a book of his interviews that I bought when I was 15…yes, I am that kind of nerd) I was surprised by the depth of his vision and the extent of his progressive views. One can only wonder how the world might have been….

This film scores one whole tissue box from me. I am not joking when I say that I sobbed almost uncontrollably for about twenty minutes after it finished. It may not have this effect on everyone, but for those who are passionate about the difference that principle, optimism and inclusion can make to our society – at the political level and well beyond, this is a moving and provocative film.