THE ROAD WITHIN (2014)

Genre: Comedy/Drama
Director: Gren Wells
Cast: Robbie Sheehan, Dev Patel, Zoë Kravitz, Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Patrick
RunTime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Coarse Language)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 4 June 2014

Synopsis: As a young man isolated in his efforts to hide his Tourette’s—Vincent is suddenly forced into the world when his mother passes away. Vincent finds himself at a centre for those dealing with similar psychological disorders after his absent father sends him away to avoid responsibility and any disruption in the midst of his political campaign. There, he meets his roommate, Alex, who is anything but pleased to share his space which is kept in perfect order because of his OCD. Feeling more alone than ever, Vincent finds a friend in Marie, who has made her return to the centre because of her anorexia. Together, Vincent and Marie set out to escape the centre run by Dr. Rose, and steal her car in the process. But nothing is easy for Vincent and as he and Marie are about to set out on their drive to the ocean to spread his mother’s ashes, Alex stops them in their tracks, threatening to end the trip before it begins. Instead, Alex finds himself kidnapped and a backseat passenger on a three day journey that becomes a life changing experience none of them saw coming. With Dr. Rose and Vincent’s father in pursuit, the three young adults find they’re perfectly capable of living their lives according to their own rules, while breaking some others in the meantime.

Movie Review:

True to formula of any self-respecting indie drama, Gren Wells’ debut feature is made up of three dysfunctional individuals who take a road trip that doubles up as their respective journeys of self-discovery. There is Alex (Dev Patel), a germaphobe suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. There is Marie (Zoe Kravitz), an anorexic with a cynical attitude to boot. And last but not least, there is Vincent (Robert Sheehan), whose Tourette’s syndrome causes him to have uncontrollable tics accompanied by sudden outbursts of vulgar language. As it so happens, Vincent has just lost his mother, which makes the perfect excuse for a drive down to California so that he can scatter her ashes in the open sea.

At the risk of sounding heartless, we loathe each and every one of them. Alex’s OCD shtick is annoying to say the least, not least because he goes around screaming whenever anyone touches him. Vincent is worse, twitching, stuttering and jerking around with incessant vulgarity. Frankly, we just want to give Alex a tight slap and seal Vincent’s mouth shut. The only character which doesn’t get on our nerves is Marie, who for one doesn’t scream or curse and for another has the most poise and wit amongst the three. Nonetheless, because they are in the same vehicle together, Wells, who also wrote the script, fashions plenty of antagonistic bickering among the three runaways, which quickly gets extremely grating.

There is no doubt each and every one of them needs serious mental help, but Wells trivialises their afflictions by trying to put a positive spin on them. “Amy Winehouse sucks my cock!” blurts Vincent. Are we supposed to find that funny? Or how about “Aaaah! Cunt licker! Fuck! What are you staring at?” Are we supposed to find that amusing as well? Going by Wells’ definition, all that plus Alex’s frantic attempt to wipe everything down is supposed to be quirky – not only do we fail to find the sense of humour in their loopy antics, it gets very tiresome and tedious very soon. Worse still, Wells milks it all for sentimental uplift by slowly forging a friendship between them along the way and trying to win our sympathy for these psychologically unbalanced individuals.

To be blunt, we found ‘The Road Within’ to be a reprehensible movie. There is nothing amusing about someone who curses uncontrollably, and probably nothing to be gained from condoning that person running away from dedicated help at a proper facility. Yes, Wells tries to establish a father-son bonding subplot by having Vincent’s absentee politician father Robert (Robert Patrick) give chase after Vincent flees the facility, but there are much better circumstances under which such reconciliation can take place. Wells suggests too that the healing can take place through an unlikely romance that develops between Vincent and Marie, but that’s just another false note amommmmmmng many of the film’s other hollow and simply wrong ones.  

Indeed, Wells’ treatment of her own material is tonally deaf, which explains the one-note performances from her teenage cast. You’ll recognise Patel from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and the two ‘Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ films, but the English actor is simply overwrought without any shade of nuance. Same goes for Sheehan, who takes his verbal, vocal and bodily contortion act too literally. The only cast member who seems to play a real character is Kravitz, and that is in part because she gets the least clichéd portrayal of the lot. Patrick and his supporting co-star Kyra Sedgwick make the best of thinly written adult roles, but at least aren’t called to plumb their undignified depths.

Make no mistake, we have every sympathy for those whose conditions Wells intends to portray onscreen; what we however take offence with is how Wells mines their conditions for easy humour while trying to get us to empathise with them. Yes, we are rarely so off-put by a movie, but ‘The Road Within’ demands a sort of indulgence that we find hard to accord. Let’s put it this way – if you’re prepared to spend one and a half hours with a teenager who stands up in church at his mother’s funeral, yells “Faggot!” at the minister, and then accuses him, in front of the entire congregation, of dying his pubic hair, well then you might just find something to like about this journey. The rest of us can stay far, far away. 

Movie Rating:

(An ingratiating journey of the most frustrating kind, this wanna-be indie dramedy brings together a germaphobe, an anoxeric and a Tourette’s syndrome sufferer to inflict its own insufferable torture upon its audience)

Review by Gabriel Chong