Road trips in American film have often been flamboyant metaphors—Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise come quickly to mind. The Yellow Handkerchief will not be remembered so readily given its low-key, Southern slow delivery. Yet it has a subtle power to inform the Louisiana bayou landscape with meaning as three strangers embark by auto for destinations barely known.
Brett Hanson (William Hurt) has just been released from 6 years in prison for manslaughter. Ignorant of this fact is Martine (Kristen Stewart), a fifteen year-old runaway, who invites Brett to ride with her and Gordy (Eddie Redmayne), who is a stranger and a strange young man having the advantage of a convertible and enough cash for a trip that might end up in New Orleans.
Like a European film, Handkerchief takes it time to reveal character, meet a conflict and climax, and settle down to its title, which is unsubtly tied to the handkerchief and a pop tune about an ex-convict "comin' home." Hurt, one of America's finest actors, brings gravity and melancholy to a role that requires sorrow and redemption to ride along with hope. I hope he receives a well-deserved Oscar nod and the grand prize—think of Jeff Bridges' win for Crazy Heart, a more histrionic part than Hurt's understated torture.
While I'm still trying to warm up to Kristen Stewart as anything but a vampire lover of little acting range beyond a hesitating delivery, Maria Bello as May, Brett's love interest, is plain persuasive as the one who tries to understand and work with the eccentricities of Brett.
Of course, Katrina as family wrecker is quietly in the background, and because this is a story of the search for family, or "belonging to something," the hurricane informs every grasp for lost love as the vanished twin towers might do. If you want slow exposition that offers character development of the first order, then ride along with these three misfits to find a bit of yourself in the journey.
