On the Road (2012)

Film: On the Road (2012)
Stars: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge
Director: Walter Salles
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There are books that I can say with a little bit of "I'm getting around to it" shame that I haven't read like The Help, where the novel hasn't reached any sort of level of classic fame and is really just a popular book club selection.  Then there are books where admitting you haven't read it feels like you're admitting you're an alcoholic or that you took your parents' car joyriding or some long-seated truth that you've hidden in the dark.  So, friends, readers, Romans, countrymen, my name is John and I've never read On the Road.  Whew, glad we got that out there.  I promise that I will get around to Portrait of a Lady so we don't have to have this awkwardness again when we get to the 1996 Oscars.

(Spoilers Ahead) While I wasn't familiar with the book, I was familiar with the Beat Generation, and had seen Howl (yes, I haven't read that one either, and yes, I will be making more of an effort to get a little more literary in the upcoming year), and had read about the Beat Generation (...in Vanity Fair...leave me alone!) and its impact on artistic culture, so I went in with a bit of a preconceived notion, and while I can't say that I know Kerouac's written story, in the hands of Walter Salles, I got to see both the good and the bad of this drug-addled, mind-bending band of artists.

The film tells the tale of Sal, a character clearly inspired by Kerouac himself, who, after the death of his father, takes up on a trip on the road with two Bohemian spirits, Marylou (Stewart), a young, beautiful woman who happens to have fallen in love with the lawless, uninhibited Dean Moriarty (Hedlund), a name that sounds like a Sherlock Holmes villain for about twenty seconds and then Hedlund owns it with a confident, naked swagger.

The film after this is a series of interactions, and while both Sal and Dean slowly alter their own sense of friendship and attitude toward life, Salles, perhaps at the film's peril, is a bit too preoccupied with throwing at us cameos by a bevy of actors that we'll react to with a "she's in this movie?!?" sort of awe.  This sometimes works-Kirsten Dunst, for example, is wonderful as a good girl that has been brought down by the magnetism of Dean's appeal, and through the film we see her slowly lose herself, going from a reputable young woman to a single mother, a thought that demands a far sharper stigma in the 1960's than it does now.  Dunst, who has proven adept recently in films like Melancholia once again proves that her sometimes prickly onscreen demeanor can lend itself well to the characters who aren't villains, but aren't necessarily to be cheered for either.

On the flip side, you have Amy Adams, tragically miscast as a woman of the Bohemian wilderness, consumed by lust and drugs.  Adams, who is a superb actress when suited for the right role, seems to not understand her character, and while previous life experience hasn't hurt her in the past (I assume that she hasn't led any cults) it seems to be causing her to be too cartoonish in this role.

However, if there's an actress listed above that you want me to discuss, she isn't Adams or Dunst.  I fear that for some, Kristen Stewart has entered the realm of actresses beyond reproach, with people putting her in the same field as Kim Kardashian and Pia Zadora in terms of acting ability, but I'm sorry to say that you'll be disappointed, as Stewart is very good in this movie.  This, and not Bella Swan, is the style of role she was born to play-wild, unknowable, with motives that shift erratically.  She may not be an actress of Dunst's or Adams's abilities yet (or perhaps ever) but an actor who can excel in a particular role can work magic for decades onscreen (if you don't believe me, ask Cary Grant).

While the plot takes too many loose turns for this to be considered a great film, Hedlund's performance frequently makes it seem as if you're watching one.  His work as Dean Moriarty is spellbinding-from the second he saunters onto the screen, stark naked and completely aware that people are staring but hiding his pride behind a cheshire grin, he devours the film.  His work slowly shows a man desperate for attention, a closet extrovert whose wild, manic lifestyle threatens to destroy him, but to give it up would be like suicide.  With Dean, we see that there is no moral line that he cannot cross, even as others who claim not to have one find their own.  Hedlund's performance, largely due to the poor release schedule of the film (it's finally hitting a wider audience in the past week, despite the Box Office insurance of Stewart), was ignored during the awards season, but I'll give you this: not only is he better than all five of the supporting actors that were nominated this past year, he was better than every supporting performance in 2012.  If this is a sign of things to come from him, I am excited, but if he somehow finds himself relegated to franchises and Hangover-style films, I'll still have Dean Moriarty.  I'll still dream of Dean Moriarty.