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BONNEVILLE
Bonneville
 A recently bereived woman takes the ashes of her late husband to her step-daughter. Two friends come along for the ride. score

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Cast
Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Joan Allen, Christine Baranski, Tom Skerritt

 Director
Christopher Rowely

 Screenwriter
Daniel D Davis

 Country
USA

Rating / Running Time
PG / 93 minutes

Australian Release
August 2008

Official Site
(c) moviereview 2006-2008
ABN 72 775 390 361
 When resentful Francine (Mama Mia!’s Christine Baranski) stares down her grieving step-mother (Jessica Lange), it soon becomes clear which way this is heading. Casting Kathy Bates and Joan Allen in support reinforces any assumption you might have about a sunset road-movie named after a Pontiac convertible.

Arvilla (Lange) wants to honour the wishes of her recently deceased husband and spread his ashes. Francine wants them buried next to her mother in Santa Barbara, and since she holds the title on her late father’s home, she’s likely to get her way. Yet Arvilla is not without a will of her own and elects to deliver the ashes herself after a three-state journey that will take several days.

Cue the convertible and a heart-warming tale about 50-somethings stepping out, but not too far out, of their comfort zone. Such is the way of such films, Arvilla and her travelling companions will learn a little about themselves, each other and those encountered along the way. Like gentlemanly truck driver Tom Skerritt, or a young man searching for the father who abandoned him as a young boy. We know this from a letter to Francine used to narrate the film.

There’s precious little that’s fresh about the structure, plot or narrative in Bonneville. Yet there is an attractive sweetness in its core, and an engaging gentleness in its heart. Lange, Bates and Allen as a tightly stitched Mormon deliver the goods, Skerritt is realistic and honest while director Christopher Rowley’s tone is suitably measured. Boneneville doesn’t attempt great heights preferring to scale minor peaks with confidence instead.

// COLIN FRASER