![]() ![]() It's just not as believable as other characters in films like "Marriage Story." The fight also drags on for quite a while as these two dig at each other. But she decides to stick around, drink a lot, smoke, snort some cocaine, and then eventually get into a big fight with the pool hustler.Īnd it's not that their fight is awful. Carla wants Jesse to change and get his life together, while Jesse just wants to reconnect and keep Carla in his life.Ĭarla knows her old flame is never going to change. Their chemistry is that of two high school sweethearts, each wanting something different from the other. Jesse and Carla clearly have a history, and their reunion is handled well. The movie takes its time and assures folks, "We'll get there when we get there." Nobody can be a kid in the backseat asking, "Are we there yet?" But nobody should be bored as they wait for her appearance. "Hard Luck Love Song" waits 40 minutes to introduce Jesse's love interest, Carla (Sophia Bush). It's as easy to smell as summer rain right before a storm blows in. He drinks enough in "Hard Luck Love Song" to make even Keith Richards' liver take notice.Īs he swindles more people, Jesse eventually enters a pool tournament, and those watching might start to get nervous through game after game because the film lets everyone know trouble is coming for Jesse eventually. And you'll almost never see the guy without a cigarette in his mouth or a drink in his hand. At least one-fifth of the film is Jesse playing pool. While this movie is categorized as a romantic drama, it contains quite a bit more pool hustling than one might imagine. Jesse's character kind of feels like what Jesse from "Breaking Bad" would've turned out to be if he played guitar instead of cooking meth. Can a character be a stereotype if the entire movie they exist in is based on a five-minute song? It's not entirely clear if Jesse is the living embodiment of a stereotype throughout the movie. ![]() So he pulls out his lucky pool cue and hits some bars to hustle. ![]() A homeless man asks him for some change, and he informs the guy he'll "get him on his way back." When, by luck, he finds a $100 bill blown up against a fence, he buys some booze and gives a bottle to the homeless man, along with $20 and a hug.īut that $100 isn't going to last Jesse forever. If it were an Eagles song instead of a Todd Snider tune, it'd be more "Wasted Time," less "Life in the Fast Lane."įolks who watch this movie will come to see that when life is good, Jesse is an easygoing fella. "Hard Luck Love Song" moves at an easy pace for its entire 104-minute run time. He sits in his motel room reading a tabloid newspaper, eats at a diner, gets some employment applications he clearly has no intention of filling out and drives around. And for a while this movie is just about Jesse killing time. He carries a guitar, which the man can rightly pick at and sing with some skill. He drives for a bit and pulls into a cheap motel that makes the setting of "Schitt's Creek" look like an Embassy Suites. Jesse drives a beat-up Chevy Nova and wears a cast indicating some kind of broken wrist or arm. Instead, "Hard Luck Love Song" is 100% "what you see is what you get." The story follows a pool hustler and con artist named Jesse (Michael Dorman), though the movie doesn't give you his name until about 20 minutes in from a tattoo on his chest designed to look like a name tag. So nobody should expect a deep and thought-provoking story full of mind-blowing twists and turns. The entire movie is based on a Todd Snider tune called "Just Like Old Times," and the narrative really does feel like it was pulled straight from a country song. Director Justin Corsbie doesn't offer anything new in his directorial debut with "Hard Luck Love Song." But what he does serve is a worn-out bar stool your butt is familiar with in a honky-tonk bar filled with cigarette smoke and denim jackets.
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