Final Chance for Summer Fun: The Bodyguard at The Tull Family Theater
Karen Roman
Sunday, August 18, 2019 | 2:33 PM
As the sun sets on Summer 2019, the last selection in The Tull Family Theater's Summer Fun series screens on Monday, Aug. 19, and Wednesday, Aug. 21 with
The Bodyguard. The film mixes politics and pop, with Whitney Houston in her first feature role as the popular diva receiving death threats. Kevin Costner, the former Secret Service agent who didn't stop the President from being shot, is her hired hand.
"The ads for The Bodyguard make it look like a romance," says Ebert.com, "but actually it's a study of two lifestyles: of a pop music superstar whose fame and fortune depends on millions of fans, and of a professional bodyguard who makes his living by protecting her from those fans…. on the one hand, a star who grows rich through the adulation that fans feel for her, and on the other hand, a working man who, for a salary, agrees to substitute his body as a target instead of hers. Makes you think."
If you'd rather ride the emotional story, the film has "electricity from Whitney Houston," says Rotten Tomatoes, fed by her famous rendition of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You.
That powerful performance of "the song that almost wasn't … it wasn't supposed to be in the movie," Costner emotionally eulogized at Houston's 2012 funeral. "The first choice was What Becomes of a Broken Heart."
Watch it again on the big screen on Monday, Aug. 19, at 7:00 p.m. and Wednesday, Aug. 21, at noon. Tickets at www.thetullfamilytheater.org.