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.

Ruby Sparks

Stories with a single, solitary idea attached, trying to convey a message. Something almost childishly simple, something that looks childish but with a twist, with a dark edge. In the past we've had Greek Mythology, then Grimm's Fairy Tales and now we have Urban Legends. This is a very well played out Urban Legend indeed. Central concept - what would happen if you wrote your perfect woman into existence?

Brought to us by Jonothan Dayton and Valarie Faris, Ruby Sparks tells us the story of one-hit-wonder teen romance writer Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood) who is set a task by his therapist (Elliot Gould, Friends) to write about someone who likes him, despite his flaws. In a dream, inspiration strikes and in comes the idea of the quirky, fun painter Ruby (Zoey Kazan, Me and Orson Welles and writer of the film) - with whom, he promptly falls in love........ Then, he wakes up one day, and she's making him breakfast.

Here we have the set up, the problems it presents; do you have the right to change her, is there such a thing as perfection, will your perfect woman love you back, and what effect will that sort of power have on someone? We've got a good story-line, a great line to go down, and unfortunately only in parts, a good movie. I'll get to the flaws later. I think we have an interesting nod towards the idea of cloning ethics, which is fairly high-brow for what appears to be a silly rom-com, but that seems to be what is lurking in the background for the entirety of the film. And not just that, but the story does justice to such a topic, in an enjoyable way.

On the subject of enjoy-ability lies the problem. It is grasping at straws to find reasons to include certain plot points, when realistically, they could have been cut entirely and a shorter film made. I found myself checking how long I had been in the cinema a couple of times, purely due to the pointless nature of some of the middle scenes. So, as a story, it works totally and for that, if you have the patience, go and see it. As a movie, it falls short a little just plainly for dragging in the middle, because I did come out of it having heard a better story than I expected, but having seen an average film.

The one film I'd recommend if you liked this would be Limitless, which has the same basic idea and feel behind it - but all in all, probably a better film, if having a totally ridiculous premise.