Although “Hard Luck Love Song” has a unique title, the movie couldn’t be more familiar. Director Justin Corsbie’s new romantic drama is about a man who drinks, drives, fights and dabbles in every country music cliche imaginable. This is all fine—melodramas don’t necessarily need to be original—but the film doesn’t convincingly craft its own internal logic and falls back on far too many country music tropes. There are too many brawls, bums, juke-joints and aw-shucks cowboys, and not enough real human interaction.
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The script by Corsbie and Craig Ugoretz is a sad, seedy nosedive into the underbelly of Los Angeles. The story follows Jesse (Michael Dorman), a country singer who once had some semblance of a career. But for much of the film, it’s hard to tell how much of a career he had, or if he ever had a career at all. Now, he drifts from town to town in his beat-up, run-down Chevy, chugging beers while his arm hangs out the window. We don’t know much of what Jesse wants or desires, other than Carla (a magnetic Sophia Bush), the alluring girl he sees in a back-page escort ad. When she picks up the phone, he’s shocked to find it’s someone he knows. They get together in Jesse’s motel room, catching up over Coors and some harder substances, doing a little bit of reminiscing and a whole lot of sniffing.
It all sounds like a country song, because it is: Todd Snider’s “Just Like Old Times,” in fact. Corsbie, in his feature debut, has turned Snider’s tune into a full-blown movie, adapting a four-minute single into a 94-minute feature. The film attempts to link Snider’s song to new faces, including RZA’s pimp and Dermot Mulrony’s biker, but the meld feels disjointed and unfocused, and doesn’t give Jesse time to develop as a character.
With such a talent as Dorman portraying the fallen troubadour, it’s not surprising that the best moments of ‘Love Song’ are the ones where he takes center stage. He’s got that it factor, the thing talent agents look for when they scour indies such as these. It’s the movie around him that’s the problem, rendering Jesse an exaggerated caricature, not a lived-in human being.
The script has a tendency to simplify Jesse, and it turns him into one of those “I got my beer/I got my truck/ All I need is a little bit of luck!” stereotypes. The character doesn’t work, and it seems he’s been programmed to speak in country music idioms. But what makes ‘Hard Luck’ jarring are the wild swings in mood from scene to scene. There are no transitions, resulting in emotional whiplash and perpetual headache. One second Jesse is smiling, the next he’s in a shouting match. It’s almost impossible to get in a proper groove with ‘Hard Luck,’ especially as it keeps shifting in tone, denying Jesse a moment to settle down.
There’s a wealth of talent involved in this film, not the least of which is Snider himself. Unfortunately, “Hard Luck Love Song” doesn’t capture the essence of the musical source material, though one could argue there isn’t much emotional heft in the song to begin with. “Just Like Old Times” is a cliche-ridden song, which makes you wonder why anyone would expect the movie would be any different? [C-]
“Hard Luck Love Song” is available in select theaters now.