Open Road

source: Open Road

This movie had some heart but was slow moving and frustrating throughout. Anyone that shut off would not attract friends as easily as Angie did. The ending, however, was mostly unexpected and very sweet.

Clearly soap opera quality but good acting on the part of Camille Belle makes it worth watching.

We came across this one on Netflix streaming movies and my wife and I enjoyed it very much. I am a bit surprised at its low IMDb rating, it is a pretty good movie. The movie is carried by Camilla Belle, about 26 during filming, as Angie. She has such a genuine and natural acting style, she reminds me a lot of a long-time favorite of mine, Tea Leoni. Here she plays a Brazilian (her mother is actually Brazilian) who was educated in American schools. We find her in Arizona leading a hermit's life. Well, almost. Even though she lives out of her car and a tent in the woods she has a job as a waitress. And she is an artist, drawing and painting in her free time. The lure of the story is that we don't learn much about Angie or why she lives like she does. She doesn't tell other much about what is going on and that works well to build interest in the rest of the story. Old reliable Andy Garcia is Chuck, bearded and dirty, he lives out of a shell of a trailer near where Angie camps. The two of them become friends, and when Angie does take off she leaves him some money and a note "Take a shower." Angie has car trouble on the road, it is a blown head gasket that takes a few days and a bit of money to repair, so she takes up with the trooper that found her roadside, 40-ish Colin Egglesfield as David. And she eventually gets a local job at a restaurant run by is Juliette Lewis as Jill. This is NOT your usual romantic story, it captured us to the end, and Camilla Belle is really good in this role. SPOILERS: Angie had come to the USA to find her dad who had deserted the family when she was quite young. When she had just about given up and had an art show, old Chuck was there, cleaned up and shaven, she realized that he was her long-lost dad. In the last scene they all travel to Brazil and reunite with the full family.

My cable blurb for this film listed Juliette Lewis first, then Camille, then described the story in just One sentence. I've enjoyed Lewis a lot in the past, so I viewed the film. But that one sentence blurb was about the right length! I don't want to blame the actors, but the director and writer? Probably. The characters' "character" were mostly hidden: by flashbacks out of context, or by brief sentences or silence in response to direct questions. The dialogue itself may well have been too cryptic to even give the actors insights into their part. Seemed they still had little to show us about their characters in non-verbal ways. When actors don't "get" their character, certainly the director must fill in gaps left by the writer. The feeling I got (& this isn't a verdict, just a description of what scenes "felt like") was that some actors' insights here, maybe weren't heard, or were passed over, by the director. I kept my ears and eyes open for gut level insights, 'cuz the dialogue was empty. When people try to hide something, they may fib but even those untruths can offer viewers some insight into what the character is feeling. Not here, only that they didn't want to talk, or they felt uncomfortable (about good things or bad). Lewis' late scene with Egglesfield's "David" was a bit different, but when everything "Jill" said was nasty, David's verbal response was in disgust, but his behavior wasn't. His character seemed vacuous for not just leaving the cafe - the table seemed empty, and Jill was not "helping". Visually too, like in the cloaked flashbacks, viewers were given little help in several (many?) scenes, like Angie & David sitting inside the trailer, the camera is bouncing around. I'm listening to them talk, and the bouncing is just a distraction. It's almost like the photographer saw too little evidence of the tension in the actor's behavior, or in their words; and so decided to move the camera, at least to supply evidence of some inner struggles in these two friends. If the trailer had at least been in motion, I could have stayed in tune to the dialogue, having seen that the road was bumpy (literally and figuratively). Most of us (the viewers and the makers of the film) know more about the feelings prompted by some situations in this plot, but a better review here, may be implying a reviewer has inserted his/her own experiences into this story; filled it out. I think that viewers can plant more insights into this film, than the film can drop into the viewer.

This movie sucks. I liked it for maybe the first 25 minutes and then it just became one of the worst movies I have ever watched. The character Chuck was okay he and Camilla Belle had the only interesting interactions during the first twenty minutes of the movie. After she went back on the road, I felt like I was watching a porno. The cop looked and acted like f***** creepy dude right off the bat and smiled straight through his first half hour on screen. They didn't have a single meaningful dialogue but this was somehow enough to make someone who has decided to live their life on the road to give her search for her long lost father and live in some random town where she hates the people at her work. (Also why do they never discuss any actual price specifics on the car, I feel like someone who live own the road for that long would be money conscious and where the f*** did she get money to afford that other house she bought). The whole art gala scene and Chuck becoming her father were the dumbest movie twists I've seen in years. At least Camilla Belle was cute only thing that kept me watch. Honestly it became comical how horrible the script was. Thank god this atrocity only cost 3 million to make. Also Juliette Lewis should never get another acting job ever again.

The beginning of OPEN ROAD is highly suggestive, with director Marco Garcia depicting different moments in Angie's (Camilla Belle's) life, as she works as a server, travels along a lonely road, and tries to communicate with her mother back in Brazil. It's clear she's got something to hide, but we have no idea what; all we know is that she is a talented artist, who translates all her emotional pain into her paintings. So far so good; but then the film experiences a failure of nerve and transforms itself into a familiar tale of self-discovery. Angie meets nice boyfriend (Colin Egglesfield), and his skeptical cousin (Juliette Lewis), leaves her boyfriend in the lurch as she goes off on the road, and discovers at the end of the film that her friend Chuck (Andy Garcia) - whom she encountered at her lowest point during her journey - has a dark secret directly relating to her own life. At times the script veers towards the banal, and although the film is well photographed, with several aerial shots of the rolling landscape with Angie's car just a speck on the horizon, one cannot help but feel that director Garcia could have done far more with the material.

The Brazilian painter Angie (Camilla Belle) left her mother Glória (Christiane Torloni) and her sister Sônia (Carol Castro) to seek out her father, who left her family when she was a child, in the United States of America. Angie wanders and camps in a tent and works as waitress in diners to raise some money. She befriends the homeless Chuck (Andy Garcia) that protects her while she is camping. When she decides to move to another place, she stops at the roadside to sleep. She is awaken by the highway police officer David (Colin Egglesfield) and she finds that her engine has an expensive problem. David offers a job to Angie with his cousin Jill (Julliete Lewis) and to lodges her in his trailer. Soon they have a love affair but Angie does not want a commitment with David. She leaves him but soon she makes discoveries that will change her feelings. "Road Movie" is a road movie with a terrible screenplay since there is no development of the lead character. The viewer does not know who Angie is looking for and how is she tracking this person. However she is an interesting character in the beginning, living in a tent, painting and befriending a homeless that is her best friend. However, when she meets David, their relationship is shallow and poor. But the corny conclusion is ridiculous with the family reunion. My question is, how could Angie be looking for someone that she does not know? Last but not the least, the beautiful Camilla Belle never convinces as Angie. My vote is five. Title (Brazil): "Angie"

simple story. very well acted. dialog i would guess is at least partly improvised, since it comes across very fresh and direct. very well acting in the smaller characters. male main actor totally convincing in his early going as the young gun, then later in his transformation as a ... man. the camera finds a good blend of hand held realism without being trashy. i enjoyed it very much. i believe this is not as simply done as it looks like. i understand why some might not like this movie. this is no cinema for everyone. but this is good, solid and modern film making in every bit of the piece. definitely a director who knows very well how to treat actors. i don't think i have seen many pictures where i had the feeling of such well done actor-directing. juliette lewis makes so much out of here scenes, it is unbelievable. i must say i am usually not a huge fan of camilla belle, since i feel like she depends too much on her (admittedly stunning) looks, but in this picture it fit the role very well that she is always quite distant. yet in the scenes where she could not do it here, cause a scene depended on her opening up, she really closed this very distance and was convincing on all levels. solid work in all departments. great work in actor directing. 9 out of 1o. g

Okay, first of all, it's not a bad little movie, very much like Francis Coppola's 2nd movie The Rain People, acting is fine, Juliette Lewis is as good as always, at least for what she's got to do with. Script is lean and it ponders along but with nice touches. It's very 60's in some way so I guess it brings back some memories being a boomer. Definitely not for everyone, much more for those who have a whimsical bent to their personalities, just a little drive in the country, so to speak. I don't know what the negative reviews go on about, it's clearly not for them so they should go watch Juno a few more times. Performances are fine for everyone here, not an earth-shaker but a nice bit of time spent. I give it a 7 not for my best-of films, but for this particular genre of what one might call drift movies.