At this year’s prestigious Venice Film Festival, Emilio Estevez’s Bobby earned a seven-minute standing ovation. And after seeing this film, I can understand why.

The drama, starring some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, Harry Belafonte and Joshua Jackson, to name a few, is a recount of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel.

Set against the backdrop of a nation torn between war and racial, gender and socio-economical inequality in the late 1960s, the film follows 22 people—each with their own reasons for staying at the landmark hotel. Diane Huber (Lohan) and William Avery (Wood) plan to marry at the hotel so that he can evade military deployment to Vietnam; Edward Robinson (Fishburne) and José Rojas (Freddy Rodriguez) are hotel kitchen staff members who must learn how to handle their prejudice boss, Timmons (Christian Slater); and Svetlana Metkina (Lenka Janacek) is an aspiring journalist trying to make a name for herself in the old boy’s club.

Regardless of their reasons, Kennedy’s primary election night party becomes their central focus. After he delivers a well-received acceptance speech, he makes his way through the invigorated crowd towards the kitchen exit. It is there that he and innocent bystanders fall victim to Sirhan Sirhan’s (David Kobzantsev) frustration and rage as he fires several rounds of shots into the crowd.

With the country’s hopes and dreams withering away, can the nation ever recover from the devastation of losing Kennedy?

Bold and quite simply beautiful, Bobby, a Venice Film Festival Golden Lion nominee, is a remarkable, Oscar®-worthy work.  Keep your eyes on this one for the Best Picture category.