Shared Darkness

An adaptation of American literary icon Jack Kerouac’s 1962 autobiographical novel of the same name, Big Sur is amongst the latest big screen stabs at capturing some of the lilting, freewheeling qualities that defined the groundbreaking Beat Generation. Written and directed by Michael Polish, however, this frustrating, somnambulant, dramatically stillborn slog instead serves as an arty vehicle for little more than a rolling delivery service of smugness, hedonism, pretentiousness and self-destruction.



A premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Big Sur takes place after the huge commercial success of its central figure, an author, when he’s driven mad by the resultant fame and psychological clutter it brings. Unlike the novel, which uses pseudonyms for all its characters, Polish’s take directly embraces Kerouac’s identity (and all else upon whom characters are based, save one), giving the film, in theory at least, some measure of post-On the Road heft.

Gratefully taking up fellow Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Anthony Edwards) on his offer to use his Bixby Canyon cabin as a place of respite, an emotionally fraught Kerouac (Jean-Marc Barr) at first uses the opportunity to reconnect with nearby old pal Neal Cassady (Josh Lucas, above left) and his wife Carolyn (Radha Mitchell), among others. Crippled by alcoholism and put off by America’s narcotic slide into suburbanism, Kerouac slips into a relationship with Neal’s mistress, Billie (Kate Bosworth), but in short order finds himself unable to provide for her and her son, in any substantive shape or form.

Polish (Jackpot, The Astronaut Farmer) and cinematographer David Mullen capture the natural beauty of their on-location surroundings, and Big Sur, in brief snatches, fitfully evokes both pockets of woozy melancholy and more broadly an era gone by. But rather than actually dramatize events in the lives of its characters, Polish and his editors more frequently opt for little snatched ribbons of scenes. The tack is clearly meant to give the movie the slipstream feeling of a stream-of-consciousness connection, but it only drives a wedge between viewers and the material.

Naturally, since this is a Beat work, eloquently expressed moroseness looms large. And oh, do a torrent of words tumble forth. But when not offering up tense-mangling summations of things that could more artfully be expressed in a silent glance or two (“I could see in Neal’s eyes that he can see in my own eyes the regret we both feel that recently we haven’t had chances to talk like we used to do, driving across America”), Polish’s over-reliance on the inner turmoil of Kerouac’s text just as often comes across as generally intrusive.

The gnawing ambivalence and self-destructive swan dives of hard-drinking creative types need not automatically require a telling that seems to have its head up its own ass (Bent Hamer’s Factotum, studded with dark delights, comes to mind). But with first the tedious On the Road and now Big Sur — which offers up faux-deep ruminations about the character of a man based on how he chops wood, and knee-jerk melancholy triggered by a dead otter and mouse — Kerouac seems to be Kryptonite for filmmakers laboriously searching for a little profundity. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Ketchup Entertainment, R, 81 minutes)

For a while he was “that kid from the Jeepers Creepers movies.” Over the years, however, Justin Long has crafted a winning slate of comedic characters, swooping in and sprinkling a just-left-of-center charm into the sorts of roles for which you get the sense Paul Rudd was deemed a little bit too old, a little bit too expensive, or both. And while he’s no bankable star, mostly finding solace in ensembles and animated voice work, Long can still reliably anchor a movie as a leading man, as he did in 2006’s underrated, pleasantly anarchic alt-college comedy Accepted. All of which laid the groundwork for a certain level of expectation with regard to Long’s screenwriting debut, A Case of You. Sadly, it’s more a case of disappointments. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (IFC Films, unrated, 92 minutes)