Buffalo 66 is an unlikely love story set one bleak rustbelt winter day in Buffalo, NY. It is at times tender and angry, hilarious and heartcrushing. Ultimately love and acceptance overcome despondency and bitterness.
In every conceivable way, Billy (played by writer/director Vincent Gallo) is a miserable low-life. He is a compulsive liar, still obsessed with his third-grade crush, and he treats his only friend (who is retarded) with the disdain of a bully. This is the day he has been released from prison after five years. His only offense was a foolishly large bet on the Buffolo Bills in the Superbowl, placed with a ruthless bookie.
Layla (Christina Ricci) is forced to spend this day with Billy, perhaps the last day of his wretched life. A visit to his provincial and unloving parents (hilariously portrayed by Angelica Huston and Ben Gazara) a round of bowling, which seems to be Billy's only pride, and an accidental run-in with Billy's grade school crush. We learn nothing about Layla, except that she is drawn to Billy. Perhaps out of her own loneliness or a tender attraction to his helplessness and despair the two become almost imperceptibly bound. By the end of the film we see Billy on the road to a new life with Layla, eschewing himself of the bitterness and blame that had kept him a child.
Buffalo 66 is as warm as an ice-berg. Every character is blatantly and hopelessly flawed, except for Layla, who stands out as a benign angelic figure. Buffalo is gritty, unforgiving, windswept and cold. The connection between Billy and Layla, however, brings light and warmth into this human tundra. They surrender to eachother and their world is cast into a new light.
You may not believe it, but it is really quite a feel-good movie. The feel-good that can only come by seeing the misery and powerlessness that comes before redemption. I recommend this movie for anyone who has ever been in love, and also for everyone else.
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