A Love Song Review: Sparse Western Romance Is Saved By Dickey's Performance

A Love Song

InA Love Song , a letter brings two people together who have n’t seen each other in decades . With time go past , it ’s easy to forget the configuration of a person — the path they look , the way they move , the way they say a name . But , as if from a preceding life , sometimes they fit the right way back into the film and maybe they can even replace something that has been missing for quite some meter . Directed by Max Walker - Silverman , A Love Songis a unruffled but rousing fable about reunions , love , and time correct against the backdrop of the American West . What the film lack in its sparse hand is more than made up for by the two actors who share the majority of screen prison term together .

A Love Songis anchor by lead performances from Dale Dickey as Faye and Wes Studi as Lito . The pair are due to come across in the shadow of the Colorado Mountains . Faye , who has known Lito for decades and has n’t seen him in just as long , has been widow for seven years . When Lito finally does arrive at her campsite , it kicks off an geographic expedition of sorts as the two reacquaint themselves with each other and perchance even realize that Faye asking Lito on a appointment all those years ago in form school foreshadowed their feelings for each other years later .

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Parked at camping site 7 , Faye ’s routine is put on display betimes on in the photographic film . Every morning , she makes coffee on the kitchen stove and boils crawfish that she caught from the lake in front of her trailer . She waits for something to come in the ring armour and joins a couple for dinner party , say them it ’s been age ( " enough decades to stand on " ) since she ’s ascertain Lito . This does well in build up anticipation for Lito ’s impending arriver . Like Faye , the audience wants him to get to campsite 7 . She ’s clearly emotional and Dickey infuses Faye with a sorting of childlike wonder , as if her waiting for this man she knew in her youth has allow it to resurface . During one imposter - out , Faye stand up as a car approaches , sipping her java to get the taste of crawfish out of her mouth while tuck her hair behind her ears . It ’s not Lito yet and she devolve to her modus operandi , ignoring the raft on the horizon in favor of something less touchable .

A Love Story ’s realism and its gorgeous mount will immediately raise Chloé Zhao ’s critically acclaimed movieNomadland , even if it fails to live up to that movie ’s lofty ideas . Still , the American West and the mythos associated with it is a worthy background for a story as seemingly heroic as Faye and Lito ’s . The 10 that have passed since the pair have seen each other linger over the transactions like the mountains that populate the background . The metre only makes their reunion ache with more immediateness , as if the next day could bring another decade wherein they may not see each other again .

Though the script may be sparse , Dickey is charming and brilliant in her role as Faye , allowing the veteran actor — who is most known for small-scale roles in everything fromBreaking BadtoWinter ’s BoneandIron Man 3 — to really shine as the reserved frontier woman . Dickey could n’t have a better projection screen partner in Studi . The yoke ’s get together , which takes blank space over the class of one mean solar day , is wonderfully portrayed as they play the biz of getting to recognize one another again after so many years have gone by . regrettably , A Love Songdoesn’t rent that day linger for too long . Maybe that ’s the spot , but it still feel like the cinema sell itself a turn short when it fall to its central relationship . Regardless , whatA Love Songlacks in execution it more than makes up for in stellar execution and attractively direct vista .

Dale Dickey in A Love Song