The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio, Rich Heldenfels Column: ‘Honeydripper’ Just Drones On

By Rich Heldenfels, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Mar. 14–Honeydripper is second-tier John Sayles, a thoughtful and low-key movie but far from his best.

Of course, writer-director Sayles — recently honored with the Director’s Spotlight award at the Cleveland International Film Festival — has a high bar of quality. Films like The Return of the Secaucus Seven, Lone Star, Eight Men Out, Matewan, The Secret of Roan Inish, Sunshine State, City of Hope — all offer strong characters, distinctive stories and ideas that stick to the ribs.

In comparison, Honeydripper plods too much. Sayles generally takes his time in revealing characters and working through a story. But this feels longer than its just-over-two-hours running time, the basic story not strong enough to engage the audience the way Sayles so often has in the past.

Honeydripper is set in a small Southern town in 1950. (It was shot in Alabama in 2006.) A little juke joint, the Honeydripper Lounge, has been losing customers and money for so long, its future is in doubt.

Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover), operator of the Honeydripper, is ready to gamble in a big way — by hiring the legendary Guitar Sam to play a show. But Guitar Sam by himself cannot save the day. Tyrone has to make sure he has the liquor to sell during the show. He has to stay on the good side of the local sheriff (Stacy Keach). He’s even going to need help from the drifter Sonny Blake (real-life bluesman Gary Clark Jr.), and from the power of electricity.

Most of the movie is devoted to Tyrone’s effort. But while he wheels and deals, the rest of the world does not stop. So we linger over Bertha Mae Spivey (the legendary Mable John), long the singer at the Honeydripper but now being eased aside. Or we watch Tyrone’s wife Delilah (Lisa Gay Hamilton) at home, at worship and at work. Almost everywhere, we hear music — ancient blues, church songs and the then-new, electrified sounds bursting forth.

And through the music and those lives, Sayles asks us to think about bigger issues of oppression, race and the way things were about to change so dramatically in the South. When two African-American men are close to blows (and worse) in the Honeydripper, they have gotten to that edge of anger because of the frustration heaped on them in the outside world, where there is no justice or fairness for men like them. When Sonny plays his guitar, it liberates not only him but his audience.

So, on reflection, I liked a lot of what was going on in Honeydripper. The cast is solid throughout. Besides the actors already mentioned, it includes Charles S. Dutton, Mary Steenburgen, Vondie Curtis Hall, YaYa DaCosta and Sean Patrick Harris. The actors who play musicians are also players themselves. For heaven’s sake, I even like the movie’s Web site (http://honeydripper-movie.com), which expands on the movie, notably through detailed descriptions of the backgrounds of the characters.

I will still revisit some of Sayles’ older films. I will look forward to his next one. But Honeydripper’s slow pace and thin story keep me unsatisfied with it.

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at http://www.ohio.com. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

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