Butler's Cinema Scene

Sam Riley as Sal Paradise/Jack Keroac; Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady

“ON THE ROAD”  My rating: B (Opens March 29 at the Glenwood Arts)

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

 “That’s not writing. It’s typing.”

Such was Truman Capote’s withering critique of Jack Keroac’s “On the Road.”

Having long assumed that Keroac’s stream-of-consciousness beat odyssey was unfilmable, I was pleasantly surprised by Brazilian  director Walter Salles’ intelligent, sensitive and evocative new screen adaptation.

Not that it’s going to please everyone. Like the novel, the film lacks anything like a conventional plot, being a series of episodes experienced over several years and a half-dozen cross-country treks by its protagonist, wannabe writer Sal Paradise.

But Salles, who has given us the Oscar-nominated “Central Station” and “The Motorcycle Diaries” (about the early travels of the young Che Guevera), finds a narrative and visual style that mimics the book’s pleasant ramblings and heartfelt rants. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as good a screen version of this controversial American classic as we’re likely to see.

In large part that’s due to Garrett Hedlund’s superb (I’m tempted to use the word “monumental”) portrayal of Dean Moriarty, the womanizing, overindulging, incredibly charismatic figure based on Keroac’s real-life friend Neal Cassady.

Kristen Stewart

Hedlund has been kicking around Hollywood for almost a decade now, with his highest-profile film to date being the regrettable “TRON: Legacy.” I have no illusions that “On the Road” will break out of the art house ghetto, but Hedlund’s performance here should announce to the industry that he’s a much better actor than his resume suggests.

His Dean is a hugely likeable rogue, a sexual dynamo, a devastating charmer with a proto DA haircut (the story begins just after World War II) and a hedonistic outlook that puts virtually nothing off limits. The guy taps into our post-war image of manliness: part surfer boy, part rodeo rider, part intellectual, part debaucher (and bi-sexual at that).

He’s incapable of fidelity, and yet for much of the film’s running time we, like our narrator Sal, forgive Dean his trespasses because he’s so freakin’ full of the juice of life.

But Hedlund is also able to tap into the pain and insecurity beneath the cocky grin and swagger. This Dean is terrifically intelligent, but not in any of the ways that will earn him a decent living. And he carries the scars of an alcoholic father and other unresolved issues. After a while the hard partying looks less like a celebration than a distraction from grim reality.

Hedlund is so good he overshadows Brit actor Sam Riley as Sal.  It’s not that Riley is bad, but rather that he is the moth flitting around Hedlund’s flame, an observer and chronicler rather than a doer. He is the conduit through which we experience the bigger-than-life Dean, and like Sal we’re swept off our feet.

Sam Riley

Tom Sturridge(another Englishman) is quite excellent in the smaller role of Carlo, the poet based on Allen Ginsberg.

Kristen Stewart plays Dean’s long-suffering wife (and gets a nude scene with which to celebrate her graduation from the “Twilight” franchise). Alice Braga portrays a migrant worker with whom Sal cohabits for a harvest season. Viggo Mortensen appears as a spiderly writer based on William S. Burroughs.

Steve Buscemi is appealingly weird as an old perv who gives our crew of  rowdy youngsters a cross-country ride. Terrence Howard is a jazz man whom our characters idolize.

Heck, everywhere you look in this movie is a hot young star. Keep your eyes open for Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss and Kirsten Dunst.

The film’s production values are first-rate and Salles’ direction nicely captures the attitude of young people who like termites are quietly gnawing away at the pillars of conventional American life. With its commingling of rebellion and sadness, this film does the book proud.

 | Robert W. Butler