On the Road

★★★

(2012)

Universally adored and cemented in American conscious as a work of genius, as a celebration of the generation growing up during WWII and as a potent cultural firecracker for them to flaunt, On the Road contained a blue print for the spirited youth who made America a boiling pot of creativity in the 50's and 60's. It rewrote what it was to be young and free in a time which had left the world shaken and confused. On the Road lives on the page, everywhere and nowhere, it's the sentiment and language, the intangible feeling of the thing as a whole which makes Kerouac's work seminal. It's also the reason that a cinematic version has been a near impossible task.

Kerouac himself wrote a letter to Marlon Brando in 1957 urging him to play Dean Moriarty, Brando of course, never answered. Kerouac's agent infamously turned down an offer from a major Hollywood studio for the rights to the film behind his back and it wasn't even until 1979 that a director got his hands on them. Francis Ford Coppola was that man and, over the next 15 years, would pester many screenwriters for their adaptation. None of which fit the bill. He actually planned to shoot on 16mm in the early nineties with a final script penned by himself and his son Roman but it was soon obvious things weren't going to work. He tried again later with Ethan Hawke and Brad Pitt as Sal and Dean but again the wheels fell off. He approached other directors but still, nothing.

So, finally, after 50 years, the man behind the wheel of Coppola's production is Walter Salles, director of the acclaimed Che Guevara bio, The Motorcycle Diaries. He certainly felt like the right man for the job on paper but, although beautiful to look at and as rambling an adaptation of Kerouac's beat classic as one could have hoped for, regrettably the free spiritedness of the source material falls superficially flat on the screen.

Shortly after the death of his father, Kerouac's alter ego Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) is struggling to start his novel. He isn't even sure what it could be or what he could be until his friend, a thinly veiled Alan Ginsberg, Carlo Marx (Tom Sturridge) introduces him to beat instigator, Neal Cassidy, or shall we say Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund). The trio become instant friends and over the next 5 years Paradise and Moriarty (Nay, Kerouac and Cassidy) would zig zag American on buses, trains, by car or on foot in search of... nothing in particular.

Salles film holds it's own for the first half, hooking it's audiences with fast jazz and liquor, the promise of fun, but as we wander along with Sal, behind Dean and his various women, Mary Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Camille (Kirsten Dunst) included, it becomes clear that the power of Kerouac's book and the failure of the film are one in the same. The voice of Kerouac is the star of On the Road. You could write the story on the back of a train ticket. It's not important. It's the intangible feel of youth and romantic wonder that is strangely missing from Salles work here; It's beautiful wildness disappears under clichés of endless drinking, postured sex and a haze of weed.

Garrett's Moriarty and Riley's Paradise are well performed, they have great chemistry and the film's most powerful moments involve just the two young actors. Stewart does well with little, breaking out of her brow furrowing Bella Swan persona long enough for this to be her best performance yet. Dunst is solid as Camille, the long suffering mother of the wandering Moriarty's children and a cracking cameo by Viggo Mortensson as William Burroughs' Old Bull Lee helps to lift the sagging middle but in truth it's the beginning of the the film's end.

As was always going to be the case with On the Road, it's the cinematography which stays with you. Eric Gautier, the man who shot Sean Penn's Into the Wild has a fabulous knack for landscape, close, hand held compositions and searingly bright blue skies and golden dawns. It is perhaps the only aspect of Salles and Coppola's labour of love which matches the wonder of the novel.

The promise of something unexpected unravelling infront of you exists only in the images of this adaptation of On the Road and they certainly pin down the feeling of restless travel, but sadly, after 55 years, the romance and the essence of On the Road will stay far more potent between the covers of it's source material.