Arliss Got Them Deep Delta Blues
If it's true that stuggling writers drink too much, then it must be twice as true in the South. It's certainly true for Barlow (Arliss Howard), who stacks cases of beer next to his typewriter and sleeps, fully dressed, in his bathtub. Barlow spends his days watching a broken TV on his trashed porch, painting houses, or exchanging mannered dialoge with his buddies. Based on the short stories of Larry Brown, a Mississippi fireman turned writer, the plot appears stitched together from well-worn bits and pieces, the standard-issue romanticizing of writing and the Mississippi Delta: an estranged wife (Debra Winger), weekend custody of the children, drunken rampages, a little bit of jail time and a tragedy or two, all periodically interrupted by Barlow picking a new batch of rejections slips from his mailbox.

It is not altogether unpleasant to let yourself be lulled into the movie's mellow, drunken pace, and the episodic narrative has some poignant moments that are interlaced with surreal fantasies as Barlow stumbles from one drunken bender to the next. It's fun while it lasts, but like the amusing drunk at the bar who doesn't want to let you go, "Big Bad Love" is just exasperating enough to make you wish you'd stayed at home with a book -- preferably one of Larry Brown's.