Shattering America's dreams

To judge by two of the movies screening at the festival this week, America is - no other word for it - screwed.

Bobby, the directorial debut of Emilio Estevez, is about the shooting of Robert Kennedy in the kitchens of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June 1968.

The film portrays the lead-up as just another day - which, of course, it was. What followed, however, was the kind of violent act that Kennedy had warned could change America for ever. Maybe it did.

Using a Grand Hotel-like structure, Estevez focuses on a series of characters facing minor irritations or major problems in their daily lives.

The hotel manager (William H Macy) is caught having an affair with a switchboard operator (Sharon Stone); the retired doorman (Anthony Hopkins) remembers past glories.

Kennedy is pictured only as a blurred outline, or a hand reaching out. It's the very ordinariness of the build-up that gives the film its impact, and the ending connects like a sledgehammer.

The events of 9/11 were something else, and Shortbus is about how New York reacted. It's the film with the widely reported, explicit, largely gay, sex. But really Shortbus is a very sweet, enjoyable film about people confronting their loneliness, bravely played by an excellent cast.

Sex gradually gives way to togetherness, which sometimes gives way to more sex. Like Bobby, it has something very clear to say, and given the choice between sex and a gun, I know which I'd choose. Would that I could say the same about America.

Bobby screens at 8.20pm tomorrow and 1pm Friday at the Odeon West End 2. Shortbus screens tomorrow at 1pm at the same cinema. The LFF runs until 2 November (www.lff.org.uk, 020 7928 3232).

Bobby
Cert: 15