THANKS TO TRAVOLTA, `LONG' A SOUTHERN CHARMER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

`A LOVE SONG for Bobby Long'' is one of those stylized Southern writing deals that doesn't come off the least bit realistic, but can be mighty fine fun to just kick back and listen to.

The title role provides John Travolta a rare opportunity to masticate reams of literate dialogue while pretending to be drunk and drawling. He has a high old time with the material, and makes a viewer feel like an honored guest at his play-acting party.

Based on Ronald E. Capps' novel ``Off Magazine Street'' and adapted for the screen by its first-time director, Shainee Gabel, ``Long'' goes down a path Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, Walker Percy and dozens of others have blazed before, at a more leisurely, gentler gait than most.

Bobby and his younger companion, Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht), exist in a rotting old shack in one of the dingier districts off of New Orleans' French Quarter. Drinking from dawn till well past dusk, they don't accomplish much; occasionally making music, more often playing ``name that famous quote'' games with one another. Bobby was once a great English professor at Auburn, and Lawson is supposed to be writing the man's biography. These supposed-to-be lives of theirs have been drifting along this way for who knows how many years.

Long enough, though, for them to make good friends with the woman who owned the dump they call home. She's dead now, and her estranged daughter Pursy (Scarlett Johansson), who's been wasting her youth inhaling peanut butter and M&Ms in a Florida trailer park, shows up to claim her property. Bobby and Lawson convince Pursy her mom left the house to all three of them. Though she can't stand these lecherous wastrels, Pursy purposefully moves in, does some straightening up, and the next thing you know the men are cleaning up their acts a little, too, and tutoring their dropout charge toward her high-school diploma.

It's all quite languid, mildly mirthful rather than laugh-out-loud funny, confrontationally emotional when it has a mind to be, and as bent on redemption as kudzu is on claiming Louisiana ground. Johansson makes pouty Pursy a delight to look at, though the character just doesn't have the depth to be a soul sister to ``Lost in Translation's'' Charlotte. Macht is, uh, well, just what is the purpose of the Lawson character?

This is really Travolta's show. And whatever lasting pleasures ``A Love Song for Bobby Long'' bring are those that come from a man with deep reserves of talent he rarely delves into these days, plunging deep and coming up happily refreshed.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG - Three stars

(R: language, substance abuse)

Starring: John Travolta, Scarlett Johansson, Gabriel Macht, Deborah Kara Unger.

Director: Shainee Gabel.

Running time: 1 hr. 59 min.

Playing: Opening Wednesday at Sherman Oaks 5, Sherman Oaks; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.; University Town Center 6, Irvine

In a nutshell: Southern hokum about two academic New Orleans drunks whose lives are changed for the better when a teenage girl moves into their dilapidated house. Doesn't add up to much, but literate fun if you can swing with it.

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Photo:

Scarlett Johansson and John Travolta make some music together in ``A Love Song for Bobby Long.''