It was not thrilling or even particularly fun. It had a few scenes featuring animation akin to early sketches for a comic book, and a little excitement like when the main characters inadvertently picked a bar fight. It had a cross-country trek during which the hero and heroine stopped to look at a variety of scenic attractions, from Devil's Tower to a life-sized model of the Town of Bedrock, yabba dabba doo and whatnot. Otherwise it was pretty much a road trip in which a guy and a gal talk amongst themselves. And talk and talk and talk some more. Their relationship goes through a bout of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome. The boy looks for places to scatter portions of his mother's ashes. (The road trip is partly about disposing of a portion of the hero guy's mom's ashes.) A persistent pall of unhappiness drapes over it all.
One of my coworkers, who actually had to sit through this movie for work reasons, is calling it the worst movie she's ever seen. I don't think it was that bad. But it did nothing to lighten my mood after a week full of bad news. Cancer in the family. Both sets of parents fixing to move (in one case, much farther away). A stern coaching at work, etc., etc. My response when a theater employee asked what I thought was, "Meh. It's a bit of a downer." On further reflection, I recall having some mean thoughts during it – like wondering how the supposedly successful main characters could actually function in the adult world, wired as they are.
The ending may be intended to uplift, but for me it didn't. In the rear-view mirror, it all fades into a haze of a way-too-long and not particularly eventful road trip, stuck in an SUV with two bland characters who really should probably live with their (surviving) parents, rather than half a continent away. They even manage to have sex without making it look fun.
The writer and director responsible for this, um, low-key film is Miguel Duran, who has a short list of credits none of which I know anything about. The male lead is played by Graham Patrick Martin, whose face rings a bell; I've apparently seen him in the TV miniseries version of Catch-22 (2019), but none of his other credits are things I've seen. I've looked up other cast members to see if I've seen them in something before, and the answer is a firm no. So, look them up for yourselves if you're interested. I've never measured up as a prophet when it comes to predicting, based on a movie role, whether actors are going places, but I frankly don't think this movie is going to launch anyone into stardom. I recommend it in case you want to study a use case for taking the scenic, South Dakota-Wyoming route from Minneapolis to Phoenix, before most likely flipping a coin between the Nebraska or the Kansas route.
If I were to bother with Three Scenes That Made It For Me, I'd probably mention the one where the flight attendant makes the hero girl wet her pants. It made me angry on her behalf, a strong reaction that came early in the movie but wasn't the sign one might expect of an impending deep connection to the characters. That's about it for scenes that made it for me, and the rest of the movie just didn't do it for me. Oh, well. You can't love them all.
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