Love Field

Lurene, a hairdresser in Dallas, has an odd devotion to Kennedy. When news of the assassination arrives she decides, over her husband's objections, to travel to Washington for the funeral, and gets on a bus. Along the way she meets a Black man and his young daughter, misreads their situation and intervenes. The honest thing about the film is that intervention. Lurene means well and is also nosy, casually racist and innocent of how her own country works. What it means in 1963 for a Black man and a white woman to travel the American South on the same bus is something she only learns en route. Michelle Pfeiffer was nominated for the best actress Oscar for this, opposite Dennis Haysbert. Jonathan Kaplan directed from a screenplay by Don Roos, and Orion released it on 11 December 1992. Its flaw is that the road movie shape resolves some developments too easily and the ending drifts away from realism. Who it is for: viewers who like period drama and Pfeiffer. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the subject handled harshly.