Top 5 alternative film happenings this summer

Ah, summer… It can be a beautiful time, but it can also be too hot to handle during the day. For cinephiles, it can also mean a drought at movie theaters. But fear not! This year, there are some great offerings that will not only keep you engaged but also in the comfort of amazing film venues with air-conditioning. A glance at the upcoming screenings at indie theaters in Miami this summer reveals an eclectic mix, featuring a documentary, a new film by a legendary director, a classic anime feature and even a music-themed movie screening for one night only.

Mad Max: Fury Road named best film by Florida Film Critics Circle

The Florida Film Critics Circle, a critics group we have representation in, has announced the winners of this year’s contest for the best of 2015, and it’s a wild list. Mad Max: Fury Road, a film we loved (Overturning Patriarchy in the Post-apocalyptic World: Mad Max: Fury Road – A Film Review), took the several of the top prizes including Best Picture, Director, Cinematography and Effects. Carol, another excellent movie we were rooting for (Love in times of heterosexism — Carol, a film review) had led the nominations with eight to Max‘s seven, but it ended up winning only one category, that of art direction/production design. Though it’s sad to see Carol come up short in so many categories, it did get runner up for esteemed categories like director, adapted screenplay, cinematography and score.

Speaking of score, I was delighted to see Love & Mercy win for that category. It was also a winner in Best Actor for Paul Dano. The Brian Wilson biopic really came out of nowhere to win this writer over this year, as I initially approached it with skepticism. I watched it twice in theaters before reviewing it (Love & Mercy harnesses the music & madness of Brian Wilson), and had a chance to talk with the film’s director (Director of Beach Boys pic Love & Mercy talks about externalizing Brian Wilson’s musical madness and how to deal with the character of Mike Love). As the months went on, it stuck with me, and I don’t think I played Pet Sounds, Smile and “Surf’s Up” in my life much as I ever had these past few months. I really gained a new appreciation for The Beach Boys due to this movie and its performances. So kudos for that.

Dano’s win was the tip of the iceberg for the acting categories. The winners were amazing in how much they went against predicted/marketed contenders. First of all, we went against the Hollywood Foreign Press’s decision to consider his role a supporting role. Plus, there was no sign at all, during the nomination phase, of the Will Smith or Jennifer Lawrence vehicles, and though it was close, the sentimentality of Sly Stallone did not deter critics from voting for Oscar Isaac for Best Supporting Actor not for his high profile appearance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits nearly all the right notes with breezy, rich flair — a film review) but for his performance in Ex Machina (Ex Machina looks past AI to examine artificial sexuality — a film review). Then there was Kristen Stewart who won Best Supporting Actress for her work in Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria (Clouds of Sils Maria examines the layers of celebrity identity with powerful performances — a film review), a movie most have undeservedly forgotten — but not us.

This is probably the year where the most films and people I voted for to win actually won. Below you will find the nominees our group voted on. The winner is noted “WINNER” and my choices have an asterisk* by them. And below that you will find my ballot and nominees, which may hint at some of my favorite films of the year, but, as usual take it with a grain of salt. This is a political thing after all, and when participating in these things one should nominate and lobby for films that have a chance for recognition. My choices at least define a certain aesthetic that I feel no shame in celebrating.

Check out this link to see all the winners. In previous years that I have been a member (2012 and 2013) we ranked three choices in each category. Last year we tried something different. There are two rounds of voting. Each of the 30 voting members offers three choices in each category without ranking. Once all ballots were turned in, our chairman and vice chair tabulate the results return a new ballot of five choices (up from three last year) in each category. Everyone would pick one name or film in each category, and then the ones with the majority votes were declared winners. But if it was tight race, we would have a run off, and we had four this year. Plus we had five choices on the original ballot for each category because there were so many tight races to begin with.

OK, congrats to all the winners and here is the list:

BEST PICTURE

Carol*
WINNER: Mad Max: Fury Road
Spotlight
The Big Short
The Martian

BEST ACTOR

Bryan Cranston – Trumbo
WINNER: Paul Dano – Love and Mercy*
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant
Michael Fassbender – Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne – The Danish Girl

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett – Carol*
WINNER: Brie Larson – Room
Charlotte Rampling – 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn
Charlize Theron – Mad Max: Fury Road

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

WINNER: Oscar Isaac – Ex Machina*
Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight
Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon – 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone – Creed

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Elizabeth Banks – Love and Mercy
Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara – Carol
WINNER: Kristen Stewart – Clouds of Sils Maria*
Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina

BEST DIRECTOR

Todd Haynes – Carol
Alejandro G. Iñárritu – The Revenant
WINNER: George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road
Tom McCarthy – Spotlight*
Ridley Scott – The Martian

BEST ENSEMBLE

The Big Short
Mistress America
WINNER: Spotlight*
Straight Outta Compton
Tangerine

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Ex Machina
The Hateful Eight
Inside Out
Mistress America
WINNER: Spotlight*

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

WINNER: The Big Short
Brooklyn*
Carol
Room
Steve Jobs

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Carol*
WINNER: Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Sicario
Youth

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Ex Machina
WINNER: Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Star Wars: The Force Awakens*
The Walk

BEST ART DIRECTION/ PRODUCTION DESIGN

Brooklyn
WINNER: Carol
Crimson Peak
Love & Mercy*
Mad Max: Fury Road

BEST SCORE

Carol
The Hateful Eight
WINNER: Love & Mercy*
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

BEST DOCUMENTARY

WINNER: Amy
Best of Enemies
Cartel Land
Heart of a Dog*
The Look of Silence

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

WINNER: The Assassin*
Mommy
Mustang
Phoenix
Son of Saul

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Anomalisa
WINNER: Inside Out*
The Good Dinosaur
The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep Movie

FFCC BREAKOUT AWARD

Bel Powley – Diary of a Teenage Girl*
WINNER: Daisy Ridley – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez – Tangerine
Jacob Tremblay – Room
Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina and The Danish Girl

My initial ballot of nominees is below. We had to nominate three were unranked choices. The ones that got the most mentions out of the group became a list of five choices that we had to pick from. All my choices are listed in no particular order and the picture corresponds with the film that got the most nominations:

BEST PICTURE

• Spotlight
• Clouds of Sils Maria
• Love & Mercy

BEST ACTOR

• Paul Dano – Love & Mercy
• Jason Segel – End of the Tour
• Peter Sarsgaard – Experimenter

BEST ACTRESS

• Charlotte Rampling – 45 Years
• Kristen Stewart – Clouds of Sils Maria
• Cate Blanchett – Carol

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Oscar Isaac – Ex Machina
• Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight
• Stanley Tucci – Spotlight

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Rooney Mara – Carol
• Deanna Dunagan – The Visit
• Kristen Wiig – Diary of a Teenage Girl

BEST ENSEMBLE

• Spotlight
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Mad Max Fury Road

BEST DIRECTOR

• Olivier Assayas – Clouds of Sils Maria
• Tom McCarthy – Spotlight
• Bill Pohlad – Love & Mercy

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner – Love & Mercy
• Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy – Spotlight
• Olivier Assayas – Clouds of Sils Maria

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Phyllis Nagy – Carol
• Marielle Heller – Diary of a Teenage Girl
• Nick Hornby – Brooklyn

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Brooklyn
• Mad Max Fury Road
• It Follows

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Ex-Machina
• Mad Max: Fury Road

ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN

• Carol
• Love & Mercy
• Brooklyn

BEST SCORE

• Atticus Ross – Love & Mercy
• Cat’s Eyes – The Duke of Burgundy
• Laurie Anderson – Heart of a Dog

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Heart of a Dog
• The Look of Silence
• Tales of the Grim Sleeper

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

• Theeb
• The Assassin
• Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem

ANIMATED FEATURE

• Inside Out
• Shaun of the Sheep
• Anomalisa

BREAKOUT AWARD

• Bel Powley – The Diary of a Teenage Girl
• Lola Kirke – Mistress America
• Daisy Ridley – Star Wars: The Force Awakens

—Hans Morgenstern

(Copyright 2015 by Hans Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

Clouds of Sils Maria examines the layers of celebrity identity with powerful performances — a film review

Not since Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, has a movie unpacked identities in flux as profoundly as Clouds of Sils Maria. Whereas Bergman concerned himself with transference on a psychological level between two women, writer/director Olivier Assayas examines transference on a more labyrinthine level by bringing in the industry of Hollywood, celebrity and the spectrum of roles the people of this milieu play both on-screen and off. At the heart of the movie lies an amazing relationship between a star actress and her assistant, but the film also looks beyond, examining the role of director and actress, generational differences and the perceptions of those on the outside of the industry. It’s a challenging film, but it also could be one of the best movies you will see this year.

An important chunk of the film unfolds at a luxurious home in the village of Sils Maria in the Swiss Alps. French movie star Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) has her younger right-hand Val (Kristen Stewart) read lines with her for a play loaded with the ghosts of Maria’s past. The home belongs to the widow of the director that made Maria a star. The play Maria is preparing for is the theatrical presentation of the film that made her career: Maloja Snake. In the film version, Maria played the 18-year-old Sigrid, an intern who has an affair with her middle-aged boss, Helena, only to dump the older woman, as the business crumbles around her. In the stage play, Maria is now to take the role of Helena.

Maria needs a bit of convincing to play Helena. A young, but highly respected director, Klaus Diesterweg (Lars Eidinger), is determined to have her play the role that was formerly played by an actress who died not long after the film’s release, lending one of several ominous layers to the role. Also, Maria is reluctant to taint that part of her life with what may seem like a trivial gimmick in stunt casting. “I played Sigrid in Maloja Snake when I was 18,” she tells Klaus. “For me it was more than a role, and somewhere I am still Sigrid.” She then adds, “and it has nothing to do with being a lesbian. I’ve always been straight.” Again, identity and the blurring of the role with identity is meant to prepare the audience to consider the difference between what is stated and what is implied. Klaus speaks of the characters as having the same wounds, which also has echoes of the relationship of life and fiction: “Helena and Sigrid are one in the same person.”

The dramatic implications are enhanced by barely-there hints of intimacy between Maria and Val. Key scenes are stitched together with conspicuous fades at select moments in the narrative that are loaded with both the passage of time and moments obscured and unknowable. This is established subtly, when Assayas uses the technique to explain the death of Maloja Snake‘s author, Wilhelm Melchior. After news of his death, the film fades to the snowy Alps, showing rescuers collecting his body at a distance, and then the film fades again. Not long after this scene, his widow, Rosa (Angela Winkler) shares a secret with Maria: Wilhelm never died of a heart attack while on a walk but took his own life after receiving news of a fatal diagnosis. This establishes the fades as a narrative tool that obscures secrets.

Later in the film, during a hike in their gorgeous backyard of the Alps, Maria and Val jump into a chilly lake. Maria strips naked and Val down to her underwear. They laugh and splash around, as the film slowly fades to black. In another, Val heads out to meet a guy for a date, and Maria runs to a window to watch her drive off, and there is another fade. The following morning, Maria rises to peek into Val sleeping, with her backside to the door. Val’s only wearing a g-string and T-shirt, Assayas cuts to Maria’s gaze before fading to black again. These are hints that imply more than a professional relationship between these two women.

None of this would work without the actresses giving the camera silent performances loaded with unexplained feelings. Binoche plays Maria Enders with a veneer of confidence and experience that barely shrouds a sense of insecurity that comes with aging in her business while constantly being reminded of the youth of her assistant. You can sense Maria’s reluctance to tap into it during her often frustrated line readings with Val, yet it is key to a performance that unnerves Val toward the end of the movie. Though Binoche is terrific in the film, Stewart will stand out to many as the movie’s strongest element. Recently, Stewart was the first American actress to win the Cesar award for best actress — France’s equivalent to the Oscar, and the proof is in the pudding, as they say. She excels at delivering nervous awkwardness with a disarming hangdog distance behind large-framed glasses. It always feels as though something is brewing below the surface. Her performance harnesses the natural quality of her acting, and it also carries the weight of her own celebrity on a meta-level, as the film also alludes to paparazzi and an interest in an actress’ life outside of her work, something Stewart is all too familiar with.

The surrogate for this side of the celebrity aspect of the actress, is the young ingenue who will play Sigrid in this theatrical staging of Maloja Snake, Jo-Ann Ellis, played brilliantly by Chloë Grace Moretz. Jo-Ann is another shifting character in Clouds of Sils Maria. She is steeped in scandal, caught by paparazzi in compromising acts, including wielding a gun at an ex. Behind closed doors, Maria looks her up on the Internet and finds a press conference and TV interview where Jo-Ann may be high or drunk. In these on-line video clips, including one with a laugh track inserted, Jo-Ann reveals an ignorance for the material and the play’s director that Maria guffaws about in a sense of schadenfreude that speaks to the morbid interest that draws people to celebrity gossip. Jo-Ann calls the director “Klaus Klaus, the Klaus,” unable to recall his last name. However, when the meeting between the two actresses finally occurs, Jo-Ann is presentable and well-mannered. While Maria orders cognac, Jo-Ann orders chamomile tea. It becomes clear Jo-Ann is playing one role for entertainment news and quite another in “real life.”

But Jo-Ann the actress — who is also well-known as having starred in a sci-fi/action hit — is nothing compared to the intricate relationship between Val and Maria. Their relationship is always fascinating. After watching Jo-Ann as a psychotic, righteous “mutant” in the hit 3D movie, Maria and Val have a great conversation that speaks to their view on what is artistic. Above all, their scenes at the house are an intoxicating blur of the script and their earthy, candid relationship. Often, the director cuts to them in the middle of reading lines that resonate with their private lives, creating a disorienting sense of perspective. In one of the best of these scenes, Maria yells at Val, “I gave you whatever you want, you know that!” Val reads stage directions, “She composes herself,” as if it were some sort of safe word before she reads the Sigrid part: “Like a job at a dead-end company that’s about to go down the drain?” It’s a role, but it also speaks to the fading relevance of her boss in an industry more interested in youth.

One could go on and on about the performances in Clouds of Sils Maria and the profundity of the characters and their varied personas. None of it would matter were it not in such capable hands, and Assayas is quickly becoming a personal favorite of this critic. There is never a sameness to his films. He is constantly playing with the medium and his manner of telling stories. Be it adventure through music in his last film in capturing an era (Film Review: ‘Something in the Air’ presents vibrant picture of youth in tumult) or the way he played with filmmaking and holding a mirror to the industry much earlier in his career with the witty Irma Vep (1996).

The title of the play around which the film revolves, Maloja Snake, has its own significance. Before she hands over the keys to the house to Maria and after revealing the secret of Wilhelm’s passing, Rosa plays a video for Maria of the 1924 short film “Das Wolkenphänomen in Maloja.” It’s a film by Arnold Fanck, a famous German director who basically invented the German Mountain Film subgenre. The short focuses on a cloud phenomena called the “Maloja Snake” unique to the Alps where clouds snake through the valley and portend dangerous weather conditions. As she shows the film to Maria, Rosa says, “Wilhelm used to say the snake reveals the true nature of the landscape.” The “snake,” a naturally occurring yet mysteriously sublime phenomena, also has resonant effects as a symbol capturing the incongruities of human nature. The film’s title not only references the phenomena but also the nebulous personae of the film’s three women. At film’s end, along with the appearance of the clouds to Maria and Val will come another level of incongruity that will surprise and test the viewer. How the film handles it in a lengthy epilogue reveals yet another glimpse of the complexities of the career of the actress not worth spoiling here, but if you have gone along with it so far, you will find you may just be witnessing one of this year’s greatest films.

—Hans Morgenstern

The Clouds of Sils Maria runs 123 minutes, is mostly in English but there are parts in French and German with English subtitles. It’s also rated R (expect some flashes of nudity and coarse language). It opens in our Miami area this Friday, April 24, at several indie cinemas including the Bill Cosford Cinema at the University of Miami Coral Gables campus, Miami Dade College’s Tower Theater in Miami, O Cinema Miami Beach Cinema Paradiso – Hollywood. It comes a little later to South Beach via the Miami Beach Cinematheque on May 29. If you live outside of our area, follow this link for a list of cities showing the film. If it’s not already playing near you, it may show up soon. It continues to roll out through May.

(Copyright 2015 by Hans Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

Kristen Stewart’s new film ‘Camp X-Ray’ premieres in Miami today; the director drops by for a chat

Director Peter Sattler has dropped into Miami to introduce his debut feature film Camp X-Ray, which stars Kristen Stewart, at the Coral Gables Art Cinema tonight, Friday. I spoke to him the day before, via phone. He spoke from his hotel room where he was working on the third act of his new script. He’s on his way to the Abu-Dhabi Film Festival with his film after his Miami appearance, which — if the weather clears up — should make for a nice pit stop before heading on to the Capital of United Arab Emirates. “I’m really excited to see what the reaction there is to the film,” he noted. “It’ll be quite a different audience to see the movie with.”

The film had its debut at Sundance earlier this year and has since traveled to other festivals around the globe. Sattler and Stewart attended several screenings. As the film begins its run in theaters and VOD, Sattler reflected on the reception of the film at the screenings he has attended. “It’s been great. A lot of weepy eyes at the end of the film, but everyone’s responded to it really well. Depending where you go, it’s interesting, people laugh at different things I think, internationally and whatnot, but generally the reaction’s been really good. It had a very universal message of just finding commonality in a stranger that transcends language and cultural barriers.”

Camp X-Ray focuses on the arrival of a new group of guards at Guantanamo Bay eight years after the attacks of Sept. 11. Stewart does impressive work capturing the experience of a wary but tough private whose mission is to “protect” the detainees from themselves. They are basically on 24-hour suicide watch. The film is all about the tension between the men detained and not officially charged with any crimes — though they are suspected of terrorism due to evidence that remains classified — and the guards who watch them. Eventually, Stewart’s character, Private Cole, strikes up a conversational relationship with one of the detainees, Amir (an intense Peyman Moaadi).

It’s a film that pays off thanks to Sattler’s attention to detail. With this film, Sattler does an impressive job in recreating Guantanamo Bay on a set. “Honestly, I did a lot of good, old-fashioned leg work,” he said of his research. “I read every memoir that I could find. I looked at every documentary that I could find. I got a hold of the standard operating procedure down there, which WikiLeaks put out, which was super helpful, and so from doing all those things, you can start to piece together some of the little facts and details about what life is like and really how it looks down there.”

But what gives the film its power comes from something bigger, as revealed in Sattler’s brilliant script and the performances of Moaadi and the too often underrated Stewart. Actual guards from Gitmo have actually reached out to Sattler with praise for his work. “I think the bigger challenge is how do you capture the feeling of what it’s like down there,” he added. “That’s something that you kind of have to intuit to some degree, to read between the lines. But, luckily, after the movie’s come out, I’ve heard from a few guards who’ve been down there that really complimented us on being able to capture that feeling and that strange conflict that these soldiers find themselves in, trying to operate in an honorable way in very uncomfortable and uneasy situations.”

You can read much more of my conversation with Sattler including why he pursued Stewart for the role and what she brought to the character. Jump through the “Cultist” banner below, which published my Q&A with Sattler earlier today:

—Hans Morgenstern

Camp X-Ray opens exclusively in South Florida this Friday at the Coral Gables Art Cinema. The red carpet premiere is tonight at 7 p.m. For details of the premiere visit the event page here. The movie is also available on video on demand and has opened or will soon open at other theaters across the U.S. For screening details visit this link.

(Copyright 2014 by Hans Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

Film Review: Walter Salles shares his gritty take on Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’

When famous books are adapted as movies, it’s so easy to say “the book was better.” More often than not, when you ask someone to quickly sum up movies like these, that’s the response you can expect. It is also one of the most inane responses. Not only is the comparison false (apples and oranges, goes the hackneyed expression), but it’s also unfair.

These are two completely different mediums. A book is made of words. It’s a solitary experience that demands the imagination of the reader. A film is visual, and as such engages the eyes differently. It also has sound, which often includes music. Your characters and set pieces have a consistent look separate from the viewer’s imagination. In fact, the only “language” of cinema open to the imagination lies in the cuts during the editing process. “This is what’s called the language of cinema,” said Director Martin Scorsese of editing at his recent Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities this past Monday night in Washington (read a report here).

So, here is my experience both reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and watching the adaptation of the book by director Walter Salles.

The Book

Keroauc’s book has been acknowledged as one of 20^th century literature’s great works, the definitive chronicle of postwar America’s Beat Generation. I read it at the end of my studies in literature and journalism and never forgot it. The language and rhythm Kerouac used in his text was famously known as having been influenced by the bebop music that dominated the New York City club scene he frequented. Add to that the influence of writer friends like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs and the wannabe charisma of Neal Cassady, and Kerouac was left brimming with inspiration to create a text like no other.

Those open to the destruction of the rules of sentence and paragraph structure found the text intoxicating and musical. It had a verve for life and living and seizing the day, even though Kerouac notably maintained a distance to the action, expressing a verse of vicarious living through people like Ginsberg, Burroughs and Cassady, whose names he changed in the book to Carlo Marx, Old Bull Lee and Dean Moriarty. There were women, drugs, drinking and, most important, the open road connecting East Coast USA to West Coast. But above all, it was men looking to connect with each other in as real and visceral a way as possible.

Though scenes in the book seem like aimless wandering, slacking and dreaming by a group of man-children who refuse to grow up, settle down and give the women in their lives the stable home they yearn for, the book still burns with a lust for living in the moment. Kerouac’s passion for the lives of those embracing the moment is seen through rose-colored glasses, precious to those men who embrace living life on benzedrine, liquor and pot to a fault. Yet, the consequence remains only in the nostalgic moments when the high wears off, and they have lost sight of the bigger picture. The only quest in the book is a hopeful, sloppy search for Dean’s long-lost father. Otherwise, it’s a search for capturing the verve of life in long meandering sentences that resist arrival at a punctuation point.

Earlier Adaptations

How does a longtime filmmaker like Salles even think to handle this sort of material, known as much for its language, as the actions within? It’s not possible. Few have noted that film versions of the early Kerouac/Cassady-era inspired two other films. Heart Beat (1980) and The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997) were based on other sources of the period that covered On the Road, yet still contained scenes and situations that defined On the Road: conflicted affections between people and fast cars that literalized fleeing from conflict. The first featured Nick Nolte and John Heard as Cassady and Kerouac respectively. The later film, based on a letter Cassady wrote Kerouac, starred Thomas Jane as Cassady and featured a character inspired by Ginsberg played by Adrien Brody. It also featured a pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves. Kerouac’s character remains a sort of ghost, however.

These are obscure films for the simple fact that they went nowhere in the cinematic worlds of their time. They did not fail because of any ineptitude of those involved. Though the drama is certainly as frenetic as anything depicted in On the Road, the staging and presentation of that action falls rather inert. What both are missing is the language and rhythm of the narrative that brought the seeming aimless tragedy of these characters to vibrant life.

The failures of these films say something about the material, and it is bound to doom Salles’ film, despite the fact that it is the first true adaptation of On the Road. It will not satisfy anyone looking for something remotely resembling the feeling of book precisely because of the limits of cinema in handling material so reliant on the language of the text itself. Ironically, the problem of this film adaptation arrives in its almost literal approach to the material. However, there are many cinematic elements that do, ultimately, make the film worthwhile.

The Film Review

Keroac’s stand-in, Sal Paradise (a low-key Sam Riley) first appears in voice over reading from the text. The presumption that such a straightforward gimmick to include the text already sets the movie up for a sort of disappointment. Riley does not get the voice and rhythm of the text until the film’s finale, when he mimics Kerouac’s own famous reading of the book’s end on “the Steve Allen Show” (you can watch Kerouac’s original TV appearance here). Otherwise, his readings feel so straight, one is left to wonder if the voice-over narrative is even based on the original text.

But then, the slack voice for most of the film may be appropriate considering that, for most of the film, Sal is searching for inspiration to write the Great American Novel. We meet Sal drinking at a bar with his friend Carlo (Tom Sturridge) who seems to rub in the fact that his mind is a “veritable echo chamber of epiphanies.” But soon, in search of some reefer, the two will meet Dean (Garrett Hedlund), who will become a sort of savior for the both of them. After they knock on a door to a rundown apartment, Dean opens it wide, standing there stark naked. Carlo can’t seem to lick his lips enough as he sizes Dean up and Sal just seems in awe. Dean holds out a hand to Sal, they shake and Dean compliments Sal on his strong grip.

Played by Hedlund with a cool swagger, Dean comes across as a vivacious rapscallion, who Sal both praises and writes off as a con man, early in the film. After barging in on Sal’s Christmas dinner at his sister’s North Carolina home with his teenage wife Marylou (Kristen Stewart) and his “old pal” Ed Dunkle (Danny Morgan), the trio mooch off the meal like hungry hobos (which they pretty much are). Though Dean tries to remember manners in front Sal’s uptight mother, it’s all airs, as he can’t wait to tell Sal about his experience with a virgin during an interracial orgy. Sal convinces his mother to drive back to New York City with the trio instead of taking the bus, and she hesitantly agrees. When Dean steals gas from a filling station by resetting the pump, upsetting Sal’s mother, Sal notes, “This is the new, complete Dean.”

The film, like the book is filled with these seeming aimless vignettes/character sketches, as it bounds along across the U.S. before ending in Mexico. These people might seem reckless and unsympathetic as the film moves along rapidly from scene to scene with little consequence. At one point Carlo says, “There is no gold at the end of the rainbow, just shit and piss but to know that makes me free.” That actually is the key to this film, which offers a gritty look at people choosing to live life on the brink of near madness and abandon. With its worn, earthy tones in its costumes and set design, the film feels immersive. Even the choice of shooting trees stripped of leaves along the winter roadways and the dust billowing off the California farm fields keeps the harsh landscape in perspective where these rough-edged characters dwell.

As opposed to Heart Beat and The Last Time I Committed Suicide, Salles’ film could stand as the best of the Kerouac/Cassady relationship films, and one can tell it was made with affection for these characters, who are all well-portrayed thanks to sincere performances by all actors involved, including a delightful cameo by Viggo Mortensen as Old Bull. And forget those crosshairs on poor Stewart. She remains a capable actress for all the outside perceptions associated with the Twilight films and the malicious gossip world. Though she does appear too far from the age of 16 to play Marylou, she maintains a smoldering personage who can enjoy living in the moment as well as the guys in her life, yet harbor a pining for that American Dream so prevalent in postwar America: a picket-fence home with a loving family.

The other important woman in Sal’s and Dean’s lives, Camille, is played with sincerity by Kirsten Dunst. She has a compact but heartbreaking scene where she threatens to kick Dean out of their home on the West Coast that captures the poor woman’s yearning for Dean to stand up and settle into his role as father to their two children. After a drunken night out with a visiting Sal, she packs a suitcase with his clothes and yells at him to get out, as their children wail. He kisses one of the babies and says, “I’ll be back soon” in a calm voice. “Don’t you lie to her!” yells Camille. “Liar! Liar!” She yells at him as a sort of mantra to ignore a still suffocating affection for this fuckup of a man.

It’s a quick scene, but the actors load it with potency. And a strange moody soundtrack by the talented Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla does not add any sentiment to these proceedings but, rather, a melancholic sort of atmosphere. In fact, it feels alien to the world of bebop where these characters live. Beyond rowdy jazz club visits by the protagonists, Santaolalla uses instruments like thumb piano, flute and dulcimer for his score. It almost subverts the jazz that informs the movie, as once again, Salles heroically tries to move away from tropes that make the novel so distinctive.

There is so much more going on with these characters, including the rampant sexual quality of Marylou and Dean, who seems to enjoy sex with men as much as he does with women. He also doesn’t turn down an opportunity to give it out to a slimy travelling salesman (Steve Buscemi) looking to exchange a sexual tryst for gas money. Jose Rivera’s script jumps around trying to keep up with the people, but their living and suffering becomes so muted in these break-neck scenes, it becomes hard to invest in them. What remains missing is the poetic quality of the text that allows you to forgive them their seeming reckless self-indulgence. The members of the Beat generation were an inspired bunch in spite of their sensational behavior. But the visual quality of film only allows for the superficial experience of what they were most loved for: their writings. Hence, an attempt for as equally a transcendent movie becomes an exercise in futility.

Conclusion

Last year, I commended Andrea Arnold for her adaptation of Wuthering Heights because she went outside the box to create a cinematic feeling of the book (Film Review: Andrea Arnold’s raw and impressionistic take on ‘Wuthering Heights’). Those looking for a feeling of that classic 19th century novel in visual form would not have been disappointed. The film was not a complete success, but it never could have been, as noted in the introduction of this post about On the Road. Still it worked better than Salles’ adaptation of On the Road because of its creativity.

The inherit problem with On the Road also lies in the constant ambling of these characters. They never settle down long enough anywhere for the viewer to feel empathy for any situation they put themselves in. They always seem to be fleeing something, which stunts the drama of conflict.

Instead, Salles’ On the Road makes for a nice, sometimes emotional photo montage of the source novel, but there’s no way it can replace reading the book whose poetry, by nature of the medium, remains missing from the film. Pulling off something that Arnold accomplished would have been a very difficult line for Salles, or any filmmaker working with On the Road for that matter, to straddle. It could have easily turned from sincere to hokum. In the end, it’s unfair to deride Salles’ work as a failure. Call it a doomed notion with an outcome that should at least satisfy those searching for a pretty-looking mood piece on tormented people searching for a place in post-war America.

—Hans Morgenstern

Watch the trailer:

On the Road is rated R and has a runtime of 125 minutes. In South Florida, it opens at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on April 5. It expands to the Cinema Paradiso in Fort Lauderdale, on April 19. IFC Films provided an on-line screener for the purposes of this review.

(Copyright 2013 by Hans Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)