On The Road

"The only ones for me are the mad ones.

The ones that are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything

at the same time, the ones you never yawn or say a common place thing, but burn,

burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

Okaaaay, these immortal lines don't fully feature in the film, but I love them too much not to add them in.

Walter Salles finally brings to the screen Kerouac's modern classic (by the way, I'm a fan of the book.) Sal Paradise (Sam Riley, Control) is the voice of the piece, an up-and-coming writer blinded from reason by "it" and the man who personifies "it", Dean Moriarty (Garret Hedlund, Tron: Legacy). This isn't a road story, and it ain't no bromance - it's about addiction, and about youth and about something totally, positively undefinable that can confront you at any time. So, Sal chases after Dean and Dean chases from girls to drugs to music to a normal life - being bored by one after another.

Now, the film. I think it will entirely depend on the angle you enter it from. I read the book, loved the book, was excited for the film. From this, I took away an average experience. There were elements of the film I loved, parts that were done about as perfectly as they could have been - I found myself really enjoy the music scenes, the dancing and all the ecstasy that came from the writing in the book. A role, very well cast was Carlo Marx (Tom Sturridge, The Boat that Rocked) - played the poet's part perfectly. 

Downsides, well, I'm really sorry to say Kristen Stewart. Basically, I thought she might pull a performance out of the bag, but no. She was literally just Kristen Stewart, throughout, she had no character.

There is an utter lack of story line, which may be more of a problem for someone who didn't read the book - as I just enjoyed the company of the characters I had read about. 

I didn't care much either. I don't like to say this, but I didn't much care about anyone or any thing and it's been a while since I read the book so I don't remember how I felt at the time, but when it got to the emotional scenes - most of the time - I. Didn't. Care.

So this film, it's not the best I've seen, not the best in the last week even, but when it was good, it was great. It was probably as good a version of this story as you're going to get. If you enjoyed the book, go into it with an open mind and you may well enjoy it.