Open Road

simple story. very well acted. dialog i would guess is at least partly improvised, since it comes across very fresh and direct. very well acting in the smaller characters. male main actor totally convincing in his early going as the young gun, then later in his transformation as a ... man.

the camera finds a good blend of hand held realism without being trashy. i enjoyed it very much. i believe this is not as simply done as it looks like.

i understand why some might not like this movie. this is no cinema for everyone. but this is good, solid and modern film making in every bit of the piece. definitely a director who knows very well how to treat actors. i don't think i have seen many pictures where i had the feeling of such well done actor-directing. juliette lewis makes so much out of here scenes, it is unbelievable.

i must say i am usually not a huge fan of camilla belle, since i feel like she depends too much on her (admittedly stunning) looks, but in this picture it fit the role very well that she is always quite distant. yet in the scenes where she could not do it here, cause a scene depended on her opening up, she really closed this very distance and was convincing on all levels.

solid work in all departments. great work in actor directing. 9 out of 1o.

g

The beginning of OPEN ROAD is highly suggestive, with director Marco Garcia depicting different moments in Angie's (Camilla Belle's) life, as she works as a server, travels along a lonely road, and tries to communicate with her mother back in Brazil. It's clear she's got something to hide, but we have no idea what; all we know is that she is a talented artist, who translates all her emotional pain into her paintings. So far so good; but then the film experiences a failure of nerve and transforms itself into a familiar tale of self-discovery. Angie meets nice boyfriend (Colin Egglesfield), and his skeptical cousin (Juliette Lewis), leaves her boyfriend in the lurch as she goes off on the road, and discovers at the end of the film that her friend Chuck (Andy Garcia) - whom she encountered at her lowest point during her journey - has a dark secret directly relating to her own life. At times the script veers towards the banal, and although the film is well photographed, with several aerial shots of the rolling landscape with Angie's car just a speck on the horizon, one cannot help but feel that director Garcia could have done far more with the material.

This movie had some heart but was slow moving and frustrating throughout. Anyone that shut off would not attract friends as easily as Angie did. The ending, however, was mostly unexpected and very sweet.

This movie feels (at best) like a 1980's after-school special, with lower production values and dialog that would embarrass a 1940's comic book writer. When it feels like it breaks the after-school special mode, it is merely because it slips into feeling like an old VHS tape shared by all the local xian churches.

Juliette Lewis was the selling point for me and she failed to deliver, I can blame her on some levels but the writing was just so atrocious that I am shocked she took the part. Andy Garcia must have been bored, and the lead actress basically derps from scene to scene without actually acting.

The Brazilian painter Angie (Camilla Belle) left her mother Glória (Christiane Torloni) and her sister Sônia (Carol Castro) to seek out her father, who left her family when she was a child, in the United States of America. Angie wanders and camps in a tent and works as waitress in diners to raise some money. She befriends the homeless Chuck (Andy Garcia) that protects her while she is camping. When she decides to move to another place, she stops at the roadside to sleep. She is awaken by the highway police officer David (Colin Egglesfield) and she finds that her engine has an expensive problem. David offers a job to Angie with his cousin Jill (Julliete Lewis) and to lodges her in his trailer. Soon they have a love affair but Angie does not want a commitment with David. She leaves him but soon she makes discoveries that will change her feelings.

"Road Movie" is a road movie with a terrible screenplay since there is no development of the lead character. The viewer does not know who Angie is looking for and how is she tracking this person. However she is an interesting character in the beginning, living in a tent, painting and befriending a homeless that is her best friend. However, when she meets David, their relationship is shallow and poor. But the corny conclusion is ridiculous with the family reunion. My question is, how could Angie be looking for someone that she does not know? Last but not the least, the beautiful Camilla Belle never convinces as Angie. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Angie"