On the Road
Walter Salles
Distributed by IFC Films/Sundance Selects
Jack Kerouac said, “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing . . .”
Director Walter Salles takes this quote from Kerouac and he breaks it, bends it, and makes it into a two hour-long graceful adaptation of the cult novel. When Kerouac’s novel On the Road has its first motion picture, you cannot ignore the most famous book of the Beat Generation.
The stakes are especially high because it is a greatly anticipated first adaptation. Luckily, director Walter Salles and his well-chosen cast bring a graceful adaptation to screen which will leave many touched, especially Kerouac fans. Others will be overwhelmed, or at least confused.
If you favour action packed plotlines and actual stories, this is not the film for you. On the Road offers impressions, emotions, and depth. It manages to strike a strangely familiar chord in the viewer, even if they have no idea what’s going on or why it’s happening.
On the Road has the ability to pull an audience in and to get the film’s energy under the viewer’s skin. It celebrates freedom, sexuality, and bad behaviour. The outstanding soundtrack can complement the beautifully photographed travelling scenes, or can create a buzz during the dancing scenes.
The actors are well chosen and put up a good play — and this is where, perhaps, Kristen Stewart’s name might catch your eyes and discourage you from seeing the film. If her pure presence irritates you, it shouldn’t. The acting is excellent, almost as if the characters stepped out directly from the novel onto the screen.
The two hour-long film creates a longing throughout the film for something the audience doesn’t understand and doesn’t necessarily want to get.
So when the credits come up, the viewers are not just touched by the character’s stories, overwhelmed by the film’s depth, and confused about their own existence, but they sit glued to their chair staring in front of themselves, as their feelings visibly “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars,” as Kerouac would say.
