Kritiken

Even here, Demme’s capacity for warmth is unmistakable.

The greatest strength of Melvin and Howard is that despite the tragedy of Melvin Dummar's almost-riches, the film sustains a warm, doughy quality that casts these unfortunate prisoners of America's ruthless capitalism as sympathetic through their imagination. The grass may not actually be greener on the other side, but in Demme's America, one doesn't need to feel ashamed for imagining what it might be like after all.

Recalling a recent viewing of RICKI AND THE FLASH and watching MELVIN AND HOWARD for the first time in over a decade, it's clear to me now that Demme had his finger on the pulse of American life in an unparalleled way, transcending the idea of Hollywood cinema and almost single-handedly embracing a distinctly American cinema, one whose narrative and technical nuances reflect spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and purple mountain majesties, all above fruited—albeit littered—plain.

It's an oddball, herky-jerk story that always zags when it ought to zig, but nonetheless builds to a rambling and rather wonderful portrait of the American Dream as dreamed by goodhearted small-timers: the milkmen and cocktail waitresses who go on game shows and live in trailers and get married a la carte in Vegas chapels.

Shambling yet delicate, Demme's screwball tall tale gazes at TV contests and novelty ballads and sees not derisive kitsch but the warm connective tissue of human yearning.

The concluding sequence offers the jauntily down to earth, and literally upbeat, fantasy of Hughes, the hobo millionaire, taking over the wheel of Melvin's truck as the couple combine in a hearty duet of Bye, Bye, Blackbird while they drive away into the darkness. It is not just the warmth but also the shrewdly anti-climactic quality of this ending which testifies to that unpretentious certitude in Demme's handling and marks him as a director well worth watching.