Friday, March 7, 2008

Movie review: Honeydripper

It's important for a man to have a good hat. Or, at least, it used to be.

By John P. Meyer

Honeydripper

It's 1950, and it's a make or break weekend for Tyrone Purvis, the proprietor of the Honeydripper Lounge. Deep in debt, Tyrone is desperate to bring back the crowds that used to come to his place. He decides to lay off his long-time blues singer Bertha Mae and announces that he's hired a famous guitar player, Guitar Sam, for a one night only gig in order to save the club. Into town drifts Sonny Blake, a young man with nothing to his name but big dreams and the guitar case in his hand. Rejected by Tyrone when he applies to play at the Honeydripper, he is intercepted by the corrupt local Sheriff, arrested for vagrancy and rented out as an unpaid cotton picker to the highest bidder. But when Tyrone's ace-in-the-hole fails to materialize at the train station, his desperation leads him back to Sonny and the strange, wire-dangling object in his guitar case. The Honeydripper lounge is all set to play its part in rock 'n' roll history.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Honeydripper

Filmmaker John Sayles doesn't much care for delegating - he's like a driver who's afraid to let anyone else take the wheel for fear they'll run off the road - or maybe end up taking the wrong one entirely.

Thus, for Honeydripper - the atmospheric, slow-paced slice of early '50s Deep South life that comprises his latest cinematic offering - he serves as writer, director and editor. Judging by the evenness of tone and the smooth flow of events, this approach appears to have worked out for him.

The story surrounds an African American rural community in Alabama that thrives on the other side of the tracks in a town called Harmony. The local economy is bolstered by the opening of a military base preparing soldiers to fight in the Korean conflict. Our particular focus is on the trials and tribulations of a local nightspot owner named Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis (Danny Glover), who runs the live music-dedicated Honeydripper Lounge with steadily diminishing success. Meanwhile, across the country road, a competing club draws clientèle with its new fangled electrified jukebox.

Tyrone's long-suffering wife, Delilah (Lisa Gay Hamilton, who I finally placed as the portrayer of Rebecca Washington in one of my all-time favorite TV shows, The Practice), has mixed emotions about her husband operating a nightclub. Since the Honeydripper purveys alcoholic beverages and encourages (or at least condones) all manner of "un-Christian" behavior, the association doesn't sit well with Delilah's evangelical church family. Furthermore, the Purvis clan (including daughter China Doll, played prettily by Yaya DaCosta) is struggling to get by on the slim pickings derived from Tyrone's shrinking profits and Delilah's wages as housekeeper to a local white matron (Mary Steenburgen, as Amanda Winship). What they need is a miraculous change of luck.

And they're about to get their shot at it through the inauspicious appearance of an itinerant hayseed guitar picker named Sonny (Gary Clark Jr., making a thoroughly auspicious acting debut).

Jim Sheldon

Danny Glover looking magisterial as Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis, proprietor of the Honeydripper Lounge

Mr. Sayles' lovingly-produced film can be seen as an ode to an era, reveling as it does on the relaxed pace of the times, the beauty of the piney-woods setting, the integrity of the community and - most notably - on the spirited and pervasive musicianship of the culture. Key characters in the film are portrayed by talented musical artists, such as singer Mable John, picker Keb' Mo', harmonica man Arthur Lee Williams, saxophonist Eddie Shaw and a host of others.

The movie can also be seen as a chiding indictment of the Jim Crow establishment South, which allowed local law enforcement authorities (here represented by adept-at-being-despicable Stacy Keach in the role of the Sheriff) to arrest unsuspecting black transients on trumped-up charges and put them to work in the cotton fields of wealthy white landowners for the term of their imprisonment. (Which - handily - coincides with the time it takes to pick the cotton crop.) The sheriff, local merchants and employers such as Mrs. Winship are portrayed as dedicated (if at times affable) practitioners of the principles of segregation and exploitation; they're not necessarily bad people, but they are far from benign in the eyes of Harmony's black residents.

Jim Sheldon

Suitable for hearing-impaired audiences

Thus music takes on a desperately important role in the lives of the people who live across the tracks from the stately brick homes of town center, allowing them a level of freedom they can experience through no other medium. In the film's opening scene we encounter two young boys on the front porch of a frame house playing at making music - one with a tin-plate fake piano keyboard whose painted-on keys he pounds for all they're worth, and the other strumming away on a faux-bass made from strings stretched vertically down the length of a wooden support beam.

Some may find the pace of the film to be slow, but I consider it more contemplative and elegant than tedious. The plot progression is full of well-constructed set ups and satisfying deliveries, with events unreeling in leisurely fashion as the various well-drawn characters each define their thematic space.

Jim Sheldon

Possum plucks out a tune on his fine looking Dobro

Notable is Keb' Mo' as the teasing and enigmatic Possum, a blind guitar picker who appears mysteriously at key junctures to offer words of wisdom and advice - his character is analogous to the coyote trickster of Native American lore, or you can view him as a one-person stand-in for the Greek chorus of classical theater. In this instance, he seems to serve as a harbinger of ill-fated events.

Showing great screen presence is newcomer Gary Clark Jr. as the brash and engaging Sonny, pretender to the throne of blues guitar wizardry, who displays the self-confidence required to headline a make-or-break evening's performance. Charles S. Dutton portrays Maceo, Tyrone's right-hand man and fellow business promoter, with the deft touch that characterizes most of his under-appreciated roles. Mr. Glover stitches together the expanded ensemble cast with a performance that's only mildly overplayed; his approach demonstrates a quiet confidence that should serve his maturing career well.

Bottom line: If you can spare the time and attention, kick back in your theater seat and let yourself enjoy this entertaining exercise in narrative storytelling laced with really great musicianship.

IN THE STATE OF IRONY: "Only night I ever been in jail was a town called 'Liberty'." - train conductor, re. Sonny's suggestion that it bodes well for a musician to end up in Harmony

DUMB THING TO SAY?: "They shoulda' made you dumb instead of blind." - Tyrone, to Possum

FAMILIAR REFRAIN: "They say this new war's gonna be a short one." - China Doll to Sonny, re. Korea

Related stories

• New on DVD: In Bruges, 10,000 B.C., Definitely, Maybe, Honeydripper, Charlie Bartlett and Persepolis (June 24, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Arts > Movies / Film > Independent Films

Comments

Bill Holston Verified

Thanks for this nice review. John Sayles is my favorite director. I loved Sunshine State. Also Lone Star. I don't think any director does a better job with place than he does. If you've never seen Return of the Seacaucus 7 , you should. It's what the Big Chill really wanted to be.

10 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )