If the funky, energetic The Runaways is the film
that proves Kristen Stewart has a future outside of movies with
vampires and Robert Pattinson, The Yellow
Handkerchief is the pleasant, slight, oblique character study
that finds her not yet in full control of her instrument, and trading
in familiar, telegraphed cues of adolescent distress. An idyllic road
trip, not played for any particular peril or menace, through
post-Hurricane Katrina Louisiana, this wistfully pitched
travelogue/mood piece works best as a showcase for William Hurt.

Fresh out of prison and dealing with a painful past, taciturn Brett
Hanson (Hurt) crosses paths with troubled teenager Martine (Stewart)
and Gordy (Eddie Redmayne, above left), an eccentric loner. The latter has a car,
and Martine wants to hit the open road but also wants a father-figure
protector, so some back-road meandering ensues. Along the way,
conversation and doleful introspection impacts both mindsets and
relationships, leading to the possibility of new life choices. Brett
weighs trying to track down his ex-wife May
(Maria Bello), for whom he still yearns. Martine, meanwhile, wants to escape her
family, while the pathologically introverted Gordy hopes to just get
close to her.

Attractively, almost plaintively photographed, and directed in
humanistic fashion by Udayan Prasad, The Yellow
Handkerchief flashes back and forward in time, charting
Brett’s relationship with May as well as its 2005 present day. Despite
the revelation of the reason behind Brett’s incarceration, there’s
really no grander sense of mystery tugging the film forward, and eating
at the edges of these three strangers’ relationships. And so its
dawdling pace is never truly earned. Shuffling the temporal deck a bit
in favor of chronology, and reframing the story more through Brett’s
eyes would be the best thing for this story. The kids are all right,
beset by wanly defined problems that can’t (and shouldn’t) be neatly
wrapped up in any story arc of just a couple days. It’s Hurt’s keenly
observed hurt that is most mesmerizing, though, which makes The Yellow
Handkerchief chiefly a reminder that he’s too infrequent a
big screen visitor, at least in roles of such layered quietude. (Samuel Goldwyn, PG-13, 102 minutes)