The road picture is a staple of the movie industry, generally featuring one, two, or more people undertaking an odyssey that delivers some combination of action, conflict, personal growth, comedy, and tragedy. Whether the trip is triggered by necessity or whim, it’s more about the trek itself than the destination for those of us watching it play out. In a de facto on-the-road trifecta, two current film releases — the crime thriller She Rides Shotgun, and the immigrant drama Souleymane’s Story — are about journeys for the sake of survival, while a third — the biographical documentary Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation — is concerned with a legendary author’s ambulatory pursuits and ongoing cultural sway.
‘She Rides Shotgun’
A desperate ex-con kidnaps his wary 11-year-old daughter as she waits for her mother to pick her up after school, launching She Rides Shotgun into the harrowing drama of a family ripped apart by a father’s bad choices. Just released from prison and as raw as an exposed nerve, Nathan is on the run from people on both sides of the law who want to do him in. This puts his child, Polly, as well as his ex and her husband, at risk. Targeted by ruthless criminals, Nathan steals a car, grabs Polly, and heads out on the highway to try and elude his enemies. With a protagonist having to confront his mistakes and somehow make things right as the past closes in on him, She Rides Shotgun is in the film noir tradition. But it’s noir with greater stakes than the survival of its antihero. He’s fighting for the well-being of an innocent kid — his only child.
Set primarily in the arid Western United States, She Rides Shotgun is impressively directed by British filmmaker Nick Rowland, who doesn’t stint on the brutality yet handles the fraught relationship between Nathan and Polly with great sensitivity. Coming in at two hours in length, it’s riveting from start to finish and imbued with copious heart and soul by the actors who portray the father-daughter pair. Taron Egerton — like Rowland, born in the U.K. — is a force of nature as Nathan, a frantic man in a hell of his own making, thrust together with the daughter who barely knows him, and doing everything in his power to keep her safe. Aside from the spot-on American accent, the role is radically different from much of what Egerton has done in previous movies, such as playing the flamboyant rock star Elton John in the biopic Rocket Man or the working-class goofball who becomes a suave secret agent in the spy spoof Kingsman: The Secret Service. Opposite Egerton, Ana Sophia Heger is revelatory as Nathan’s estranged daughter Polly, a vulnerable child torn from her everyday suburban world and thrown into a dangerous situation where she has to do whatever she can to stay alive.
On top of the excellent work by Egerton and Heger, who sell their rapport as it develops under duress, there’s an electrifying performance by John Carroll Lynch as a significantly harder-nosed lawman than the likable, avuncular cop he plays on the current TV series Ballard. Rowland’s effectual 2020 film The Shadow of Violence, the story of an Irish boxer-turned-mob enforcer trying to protect his autistic son, had a similar parent-protecting-offspring vibe as She Rides Shotgun, suggesting that the director truly connects with this sort of material. Adapting Jordan Harper’s novel of the same name, the script for She Rides Shotgun was cowritten by Harper, so it’s fair to assume that what ended up on screen is true to his book’s vision. There is the likelihood that, regardless of quality, a spare, indie release with minimal publicity will fall through he cracks in the middle of summer blockbuster season. Considering the palpable thrills and emotional weight of She Rides Shotgun and what the movie says about taking responsibility and showing resilience in the face of difficult odds, let’s hope it finds an appreciative audience.
She Rides Shotgun is currently in theaters.
‘Souleymane’s Story’
Compelling, insightful, and shockingly relevant as it examines an African immigrant’s motivations and burdens, Souleymane’s Story — winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival — joins its title character after a perilous passage from his native Guinea to France in search of a better life. Despite already living and working in Paris, Souleymane’s travels are not over until he gets legal status in the country. He could very well be the middle of a failed expedition if he’s expelled from France and relocated back to Guinea. Meanwhile, he’s sleeping in Parisian shelters and working under the table as a food-delivery guy to earn enough for the bare necessities. Short on cash and under unrelenting pressure, he needs to prepare for an impending asylum hearing in two days, get ID papers (which will cost him money he doesn’t have), and memorize his story to convince a government interviewer that he deserves to be an official resident of France.
Souleymane’s Story is a calamitous look at the refugee experience that may leave you shattered, but needs to be seen, particularly when immigration is such a hot-button issue in the U.S. and Europe.
Souleymane, believably and heartbreakingly played by Abou Sangaré, is up against a deadline, and time is running out. We may not see him as he made his way from Africa to Europe, although he does discuss the punishing path he took after he’s asked about it during his hearing. And he’s in constant motion on the streets of Paris, pedaling furiously on a rickety bike as he picks up orders at various restaurants and delivers the meals to customers, then rushes to catch a train, followed by a bus to make it to a shelter before the beds are all assigned and the door is locked for the night. The clock is always ticking in Souleymane’s Story, which is primarily in French with English subtitles and feels like it gets much of its narrative from the experiences of genuine asylum seekers, giving it the grit and honesty of a documentary. Directed and cowritten by Boris Lojkine, it’s a calamitous look at the refugee experience that may leave you shattered, but needs to be seen, particularly when immigration is such a hot-button issue in the U.S. and Europe.
Souleymane’s Story premiered at the San Francisco Film Festival in April and will be available in select theaters this month.
‘Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation’
Those of us with an interest in and affection for the writers of the Beat Generation will probably find enough merit in the new documentary Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation to give it a look. Aiming to honor author Jack Kerouac and his highly influential novel On the Road, director Ebs Burnough pulled together biographical details, archival clips, Kerouac’s own words as intoned by actor Michael Imperioli, and interviews with famous fans of the man and his most renowned book, among them actors Josh Brolin and Matt Dillon, singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant, comedian and commentator W. Kamau Bell, and novelist Jay McInerney. Burnough also included accounts from people who knew Kerouac personally, such as fellow author and former girlfriend Joyce Johnson and composer David Amram, whose innovative, collaborative performances with the Beat icon mixed poetry, jazz, and theater. Regrettably, Burnough didn’t simply concentrate on the troubled life, foibles, and lasting impact of Kerouac, who died in 1969 at the age of 47. Instead, a chunk of Kerouac’s Road is devoted to the rambles of an interracial couple, an older single woman, and a college-bound teenager, depicting them as modern- day American nomads. Lacking any specific connection to Kerouac and his work, these folks steal focus from him. They would have been better off in another film.
Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation is in select theaters.