Director: Walter Salles
Starring: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams
Running time: 137 minutes
Certificate: 15
Walter Salles has a respectable history with discovery and change, he’s previously given us THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES and so with his take on the Jack Kerouac novel ON THE ROAD, there was a decent level of expectation and hope despite the book having that ‘un-filmable’ cloud hanging over its head. I think it’s important to confess that I haven’t read the novel, yet, but I do know that this adaption of ON THE ROAD is based on Kerouac’s real-life experiences. In the film, we’re set in the late 1940s and see Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac (Sam Riley) roam freely on four wheels between New York, Denver, San Francisco and New Orleans in the 1940s with his friend Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund).
This very literal journey of freedom, self-expression and self-discovery is quintessentially a film inside the writing of a book, which then becomes the cult-classic book On The Road. Their travels constituted of drugs, drinking, sex and excessive merriment and the film excels in these visual elements of proceedings with eras and instants beautifully recreated on-screen.
For me, it’s difficult to fully comprehend any character when you’re thrown into the middle of their life unless it’s a reasonably cohesive script, what ON THE ROAD unfortunately achieves over everything else, is confusion and within a multitude of adventures and self-discovery, we only get a fleeting moment to work out who everyone is. If the film is designed to recreate the sheer madness of the moments, then it succeeds but to really feel and understand any experience, this one lacks beyond visuals and the occasional moment of clarity. Instead, it made me want to pick up the book and explore their lives because film doesn’t touch upon it enough, so the frustration is that lushness of image is simply alienated by lack of character development.
ON THE ROAD’s major saving grace is the pure beauty and elegance of the cinematography by Eric Gautier, the essence of the times portrayed are expansive, as is the performance by Sam Riley are Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac and the supporting cast. My only doubts remained with Garrett Hedlund as his friend Dean Moriarty, a man with no conscience, who doesn’t quite feel like he’s in the right time for the rest of the well-cast ensemble. His performance is by no means weak, but only brings a despondent reaction to every decision his character makes.
ON THE ROAD was plagued by re-writes and you can really feel it in the final outcome which is disappointing. Instead of being an enjoyable, hard-working journey of self-discovery, it goes off track completely and drifts away into a smoky haze, and not in a good way.
ON THE ROAD is released on DVD and Blu-ray today. It can be ordered via this link.
