Love Field

Jonathan Kaplan directs this drama which grafts a nostalgic mood piece with a race-to-the-finish road movie. Lurene Hallett ( Michelle Pfeiffer ) is an insulated middle-class wife living in Texas in the early 1960s who adores the Kennedys, particularly Jackie, whom she feels is a kindred soul. When she finds out the President and First Lady will be in Dallas on November 22, 1963, she races to the airport to greet the couple. Just missing them, she drives through the Dallas streets and notices a quiet chaos developing. When she finds out John Kennedy has been assassinated, Lureen is determined to get to Washington to be with Jackie for the funeral. When her redneck husband Ray ( Brian Kerwin ) refuses to give her the car, she gets on a bus, where she meets a black man named Johnson ( Dennis Haysbert ), with his five-year-old daughter Jonell ( Stephanie McFadden ). Lureen speaks continually about Kennedy and the rest of the black occupants of the bus roll their eyes. But after an accident with the bus, Lureen uncovers the fact that Mr. Johnson's real name is Cater, and he has kidnapped his daughter from an orphanage and is heading to Philadelphia. With the cops on their tail, the trio steals a car and race northward with the police in pursuit, Lureen hoping to make to Washington in time for Kennedy's funeral. — Paul Brenner