The Honeydripper
Director: John Sayles
Country: USA
Year: 2007
Language: English
Runtime: 123 minutes
Rating: PG
Principal Cast: Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Gary Clark Jr., Keb' Mo', Stacy Keach, Mary Steenburgen
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsyEx3JdQLk
Website: http://honeydripper-movie.com/
Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Time: 9:30 PM
Location: Riverfront Festival Plaza
Tickets: $10.00 Chrysler Theatre Box Office
Screened in partnership with Bluesfest International
http://thebluesfest.com/bluesfest_windsor_home.htm
Nobody mistakes Tyrone “Pine Top” Purvis (Danny Glover) for a businessman, but the man knows his blues. In Harmony, Alabama, circa 1950, knowing your blues and two bits will buy you supper. Ty’s Honeydripper juke joint has seen better days, and his customers have slipped away to the town’s other, looser night spot. Pushing up against bankruptcy and feeling his God-fearing wife breathing down his neck, Ty needs a saviour.
As if it were fate, young Sonny (Gary Clark Jr.) drifts into town with nothing but a guitar on his back and an ache in his belly. Sonny’s looking for work, but Ty is busy trying to save the Honeydripper by chasing after blues star Guitar Sam. Local folks have only ever heard Guitar Sam on the radio. If Ty can bring him to town for just one Saturday night, all his problems will be solved.
Returning to the rural South he explored so beautifully in Passion Fish, John Sayles brings a shaggy-dog humour to this tale, along with a real passion for the world that made blues music. This is a time when strong men could still be pressed into work picking cotton, or run out of town by the sheriff (Stacy Keach). But Sayles keeps a light touch here. Even a funeral on a sun-dappled country road has the sweet dignity of an Ellis Wilson painting. And Possum (Keb’ Mo’), the blind street musician who seems to have advice only for Ty, is a creation of pure Sayles charm.
Sayles also gives his actors room to stretch out. Glover’s performance harks back to the grace and flashes of wit he displayed in To Sleep with Anger. Charles S. Dutton finds an easy rhythm as Ty’s sidekick and foil, Maceo. And Mary Steenburgen takes on a small, perfectly detailed role as one of those fragile afternoon alcoholics grown only in the South.
Viewed from a distance, this might seem like a static world. But when Sonny launches into “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” he shouts the soul of rhythm and blues, and the rock ’n’ roll that chased it.
Cameron Bailey |
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