Bonneville is a “coming of age” story of a different kind. It’s that age when you have built up a lifetime of experiences, relationships and memories—perhaps called the “golden years” depending on how it all adds up. But it’s also the age when years of stability and security can give way to illness, loss and advancing years. The three best friends in Bonneville, Arvilla (Lange), Margene (Bates) and Carol (Allen), have all reached that age, and each in her own way is unsteadied by changing times.

Bonneville follows three mature women, played by Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen, on a cross-country trip with a dead husband’s ashes, some wild oats that still need sowing and some emotional baggage to unload. Copyright © 2008 Sen/Art Films.

Arvilla has just lost her husband Joe, who was 20 years her senior, and her sense of loss is palpable. Her partner in life for more than 20 years is gone, and their home, so filled with memories, is in jeopardy in a way that literally adds insult to injury. Francine (Christine Baranski), Joe’s bitter daughter from his first marriage, claims all his property—including the house he shared with Arvilla—because she has the only existing copy of Joe's will. Francine is barely younger than Arvilla, and her distain for her father’s second wife is evident when she claims the house and declares, “Daddy gave you 20 good years. What more do you expect?”

Unable to locate Joe’s final will, which she’s sure grants her the house, Arvilla reaches a compromise with Francine. She will be allowed to keep the house, as long as she returns Joe’s ashes to the old family estate in Santa Barbara. But this is no win-win for Arvilla, who promised Joe she would scatter his ashes across the beautiful Southwest. Joined on this difficult trip by her two best friends, Margene and Carol, she sets out from Pocatello, Idaho in Joe’s vintage 1966 Bonneville convertible. As they cruise across the great American West, they discover that there’s still a lot of life left in the old convertible—and in them as well.

Emmett (Tom Skerritt), Margene (Kathy Bates), Carol (Joan Allen), and Arville (Jessica Lange) marvel at the beauty of a Joshua Tree. Copyright © 2008 Sen/Art Films.

A “road movie” of sorts, Bonneville weaves through misadventures, personal revelations, laughter and tears. Less cocky than Thelma and Louise and less slapstick than last year’s Wild Hogs, I found Bonneville a warmer and more emotionally believable road trip. The three seasoned stars all shine. Lange’s Arvilla is a beautifully complex woman, fragile one moment and defiant the next, torn between her past and a very uncertain future as a widow, not yet 60. If her emotional turmoil is the engine that drives the film, her friends are the anchors that steady it. Bates’ mischievous Margene and Allen’s repressed Carol are more than friends—for Arvilla, they are family and provide her with guidance, shelter and a port in the storm.

Bonneville is as rich in message as it is in emotion. The power of real, reciprocal friendship is the central theme of the story. Although the trip is about supporting Arvilla, rest assured that Margene and Carol both grow and change along the way. Margene, in particular, learns that it’s never too late for love with the help of an amiable trucker (Tom Skerritt). The film also focuses on keeping promises and making choices in life that can be difficult and even painful. Arvilla is torn between her promise to Joe and her desire to stay in the home they built together. Her final decision says a lot about honor and trustworthiness, and in the case of Francine, forgiveness.

Bonneville also asks us to consider how we measure a life. Are we measured by how much we love or how much we are loved? Do we measure the number of years we spend together or the quality of those years? Were Joe’s last twenty years, with Arvilla, as valid and worthy as those with his first wife? And finally, the film shows that just like the changing leaves, the autumnal years of life can still yield deeper, richer colors ahead.