on the road

I don’t normally read a review before seeing a film, but I HAD seen Peter Bradshaw’s two-star review in this week’s Guardian. So I went along to the Watershed yesterday afternoon with relatively low expectations. In the event, I really quite enjoyed it. Walter Salles’s “On The Road” film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s 1957 book of the same name is a predictably heady blur of sex and drugs. It’s set in 1949 (the year of my birth!) and captures a thrill-seeking, free spirit of post-war America. Strangely, throughout the film, I kept comparing it with another road-movie “Easy Rider” (set in the America of the mid-1960s) and felt that the characters were much more like hippies of the 60s than beatniks of the late 40s/early 50s.

Nevertheless, and despite the film’s length (it’s 2hrs 17mins long!), I enjoyed it. The acting - featuring Garrett Hedlund (who plays Dean Moriarty), Sam Riley (Sal Paradise) and Kristen Stewart (Marylou) - is consistently impressive and the period details are excellent.
Photo: Sal, Marlou and Dean.