California dreamin’

A convoluted soap opera, Bobby offers little insight into the film’s supposed hero | Megan Basham

Those hoping to gain some insight on Robert F. Kennedy's political career, what he might have brought to the presidency, and the events leading up to his assassination will have to wait for a History Channel special as writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez's latest project, Bobby, sheds no light on the life of its titular hero. It does, however, provide some heady material for soap-opera fans.

Like a particularly convoluted season of Days of Our Lives, Bobby (rated R for language, violence, and drug content) follows the conflict, the affairs, the drug use, and the drunkenness of 22 characters in the Ambassador Hotel on the day the 1968 presidential candidate won the California primary and lost his life. It's hard to make that many story lines resonate with the period, and though a couple live up to the task (particularly those involving a Latino busboy and a young war bride), the rest seem tawdry and inconsequential compared to the seriousness of the film's subject.