TJ (Finn Haney) has simply turned 18 when a mysterious stranger turns up with a gift from his absentee father. The reward seems to be the keys to a 1968 convertible; a stunning shock, however maybe lovelier if it wasn’t falling aside and didn’t have a coffin-like field welded to the ground of the boot. He’s additionally given a time and an handle tons of of miles away, of when and the place he’ll meet his father after a few years. That is the setup for a sentimental and pretty low-key highway journey following a reasonably traditional call-to-adventure odyssey construction, of the kind made of their dozens throughout the US indie film-making increase of the Nineteen Nineties.
There’s one thing refreshing (or passe, relying on private desire) about seeing a movie made at the moment starring a teenage lead character who’s so unashamedly earnest. TJ, together with his wide-eyed optimism tempered with the ache of parental rejection, recollects the likes of Dawson, he of the eponymous creek. Like Dawson, he’s an aspiring film-maker, and features like, “Everybody has their very own path to comply with and mine is wherever PTA says it’s,” are in fact fairly cringe. However you recognize what? So are youngsters; not sufficient onscreen teenagers are authentically naff. It wouldn’t work nevertheless, if it wasn’t balanced with the emotional fact of TJ’s emotions about his dad, which aren’t embarrassing however uncooked and painful: “He didn’t even name me. He simply didn’t need me.”
The wheels come off somewhat (not actually) within the concluding reel, the place the mysterious field within the trunk is lastly opened. It’s troublesome for the solutions contained inside these sorts of narrative units to be fairly as satisfying because the questions, and so it proves. Here’s a movie the place it’s higher to journey hopefully than arrive, however the journey is nice sufficient.
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