The Yellow Handkerchief

Feb 26

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William Hurt and Kristen Stewart hope for a better script in "The Yellow Handkerchief"

I should have known that a film with a 2008 date coming out in 2010 would be trouble.  “The Yellow Handkerchief” is a long slog of a movie featuring William Hurt and a pre “Twilight” Kristen Stewart.  The story concerns three strangers who, for no convincing reason, wind up on a road trip together, which predictably turns into a voyage of self-discovery for all involved.

Hurt plays Brett Hanson, a man who has just been released from jail.  Intermittent flashbacks give us Brett’s backstory.  The film’s slow pacing tries our patience as we wait to find out why Brett was in jail.  It takes way too long for the main story to jell and the payoff is a rip off.  Anyone who remembers the 1973 hit single from Tony Orlando and Dawn, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree,” will know exactly where this is going before it gets there.   What the song tells us in three minutes “The Yellow Handkerchief” takes the length of a feature film to do.

The Yellow Ribbon, Udayan Prasad, Samuel Goldwyn Films, 102 minutes, PG-13

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About unpaidfilmcritic

Up until 2009 Seth Shire spent nearly two decades in the New York film industry as a post production supervisor of feature films. Highlights include working on the films of Martin Scorsese, James Toback and Spike Lee. Since leaving the film industry Seth has expanded into new and varied areas where he has found a great deal of satisfaction. Seth currently teaches in the Sociology Department of CUNY Queens College. His courses include "Mass Media and Popular Culture," "Introduction to Sociology," and "Sociology of Cinema" where he is a very popular teacher. Seth is also the film critic for "Town & Village," a Manhattan weekly newspaper, a position he has held for the past six years. Seth gives back to his community through volunteer teaching at Manhattan's "The Caring Community," a center for senior citizens, where he teaches a very popular course on documentaries called "The Golden Age of the Documentary. In the fall of 2010 Seth taught "Critical Reading and Writing" at Parsons School of Design. He has also taught "Cinema Studies" at the New York Film Academy. Seth lives in Stuyvesant Town, in Manhattan.

Posted on February 26, 2010, in What were they thinking?. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a Comment.

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