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“Bonneville” is a sentimental, daffy and dawdling road picture about people who have some mileage on them. Well-cast, with a couple of Oscar winners and a sometime Oscar contender at its core, it’s a “Thelma & Louise & Carol Makes Three” journey of self-discovery that takes place in a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville convertible.
Jessica Lange stars as Arvilla, an Idaho woman who has just lost her husband. He was an adventurous sort, an academic who showed her the world. And he made her promise him she would scatter his ashes in Borneo when he died.
His daughter from his first marriage (Christine Baranski) won’t hear of that. She wants him buried next to her mom in Santa Barbara. She’s already mad that Dad’s been cremated. If Arvilla doesn’t surrender the ashes, Francine will use her father’s outdated will to toss Arvilla out of her home.
That worries Arvilla’s Mormon mom pal Carol (Joan Allen), a meek fussbudget naive to the ways of the world. And it annoys the heck out of their brassier widowed friend, Margene (Kathy Bates, in full good ol’ gal bluster). But reason prevails, and they resolve to take the ashes from Pocatello, Idaho, to Santa Barbara, Calif. And as predictable as this journey is, at least it’s not a boring one. They miss their flight and decide, instead, to drive that 1966 Bonneville to a memorial service to take place the next week.
Christopher N. Rowley’s movie ambles over the Bonneville Salt Flats to Las Vegas, Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon and lots of the scenic West, picking up a handsome, helpful hitchhiker (Victor Rasuk in the Brad Pitt role) and a dashing, age-appropriate trucker (Tom Skerritt) along the way. The women have adventures, bicker and crack wise.
“This thing doesn’t even have air bags,” Carol’s husband (Tom Wopat) complains.
“Sure it does. Three of ’em,” Arvilla cracks back, after she and her two pals take their seats.
There are good clean Mormon jokes, conventional movie encounters with Vegas slot machines (they always pay off in the movies) and old-fashioned celebrations of “Magic Fingers” motel beds.
The movie wears a kind of ever-present grin, even if it never breaks a sweat. Lange narrates, intermittently. And three actors who know how to play funny and sweet and sad banter away in that absurdly oversize tribute to 1960s auto excess. Allen’s shtick is the funniest. She’s sweetly judgmental of her old friends. She and Margene may go to the same church, but the randy widow’s worldly worldview freaks Carol out.
“What kind of Mormon are you?”
Carol “accidentally” downs the first cocktail to pass her way in a Vegas casino.
“Oh my heck. I think I just drank vodka!”
Wonder how she knew?
“Bonneville” is pleasant enough, in that undemanding “Bucket List” sort of way. It’s a pity this odyssey is as pre-ordained as an Auto Club TripTik. Still, the actors make us happy to be along for the ride.
If you go
What: “Bonneville”
Starring: Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Joan Allen, Tom Skerritt, Christine Baranski
Directed by: Christopher N. Rowley
Produced by: Franklin Township resident Robert May
Running time: 93 minutes
Rated: PG for some mild language and innuendo