On the Road – Unterwegs (2012)

On the Road – Unterwegs: Directed by Walter Salles. With Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams. Young writer Sal Paradise has his life shaken by the arrival of free-spirited Dean Moriarty and his girl, Marylou. As they travel across the country, they encounter a mix of people who each impact their journey indelibly.

“Itu0026#39;s the late 1940s, and young writer Sal Paradiseu0026#39;s father has just died. He hangs out with friends in bars and struggles with writersu0026#39; block. But when he meets charismatic Dean, Sal decides to follow his new friendu0026#39;s lead and take to the road on a cross-country trip across America.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLetu0026#39;s start with the good, shall we? The supporting cast are excellent, and special mention should be given to Tom Sturridge. He plays Carlo (Allen Ginsbergu0026#39;s alter ego), who spends much of the film intensely brooding over his broken heart, his writing, his wild ambitions. A quiet scene in which he tries to articulate his feelings towards Dean is one of my favourite in the whole film. Elisabeth Moss and Amy Adams also have blink-and-you-miss-it supporting roles, and they both easily outshine their higher-billed co-stars.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnfortunately, thatu0026#39;s about all the praise I can muster.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWe are informed, time and time again, that Dean is charismatic, charming, infectiously reckless and dangerous and sexy. Sal, Carlo and Marylou canu0026#39;t get enough of him. He makes their lives better, more complete, more exciting. And yet Hedlund, for whatever reason, completely fails to shine on the screen. Good looking, yes, but charming he is not.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eReading the filmu0026#39;s trivia page, previous attempted adaptations of Kerouacu0026#39;s book had the likes of Marlon Brando and Brad Pitt in mind to play the role of Dean. It makes me disappointed, embarrassed and slightly angry that the filmu0026#39;s producers, in their search for our generationu0026#39;s equivalent to Brando and Pitt, settled on Garrett Hedlund. Was there really no one else available? What about Aaron Taylor-Johnson? Or Sam Claflin? Or Miles Teller, maybe? Or anyone who actually manages to make beautiful lines of prose sound more exciting than the phonebook? Objections have also been raised about some of the other main cast members, but although none of them – with the exception of Sturridge – lit the screen alight, none of them ruined the film either.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut of course, this film was always going to disappoint. It was always going to disappoint because it was built on a shaky foundation. The filmu0026#39;s underlying problem, the problem that was always going to be a problem even if everything else was perfect, was what the script isnu0026#39;t good enough.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAny film worth watching tells you what its characters want. Itu0026#39;s a characteru0026#39;s pursuit of his/her personal goal that drives the whole plot. There was no sense here that the characters wanted anything in particular. There was talk of writing, but only in passing, as a way to spark a conversation in between drags of a joint. The characters talked, and laughed, and drank, and danced and travelled. But none of it really mattered because, in the end, none of them really changed.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIu0026#39;m aware, of course, that Kerouacu0026#39;s book is a much-loved piece of literature, which leads me to conclude that it must be much, much better than this film. If thatu0026#39;s the case, then fine. Read the book. Love the book. But itu0026#39;s not enough to trust that an audienceu0026#39;s love for a story told in one medium will necessarily transfer into a love for the story in a different medium. The film feels like it relies too heavily on people knowing – and liking – the characters of the book, and in doing so fails to deliver an adaptation worthy of its source material.”