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World Traveler

2002, Movie, R, 103 mins

World Traveler: Review

WORLD TRAVELER
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Writer-director Bart Freundlich's postmodern road movie contains several sharply observed scenes but doesn't really add up to much, even after the 11th-hour revelation that gives purpose and a suggestion of meaning to the lead character's apparently aimless trip. On the day of his son's third birthday, Manhattan architect Cal (Billy Crudup) impulsively jumps into the family's sensible Volvo station wagon and hits the road. Handsome and glib, Cal has coasted through life without ever stopping to examine the choices he's made and the experiences that led him to make them, but the people he meets on the road force him to take a hard look at himself, even as he infects them with his own restless unhappiness. He sleeps with a disillusioned truck-stop waitress (Karen Allen), befriends recovering alcoholic Carl (Cleavant Derricks) and comes on to Carl's wife (Mary McCormack). He makes scenes in low-rent bars, picks up a trusting hitchhiker (Liane Baliban) and abandons her, and has an uncomfortable reunion with a high school acquaintance (James LeGros) he meets at an airport. Finally, he impulsively rescues Dulcie (Julianne Moore), who's passed out in a bar, from a night in jail, thinking that by helping her get to Montana and pick up her young son he'll be doing the good thing that will make up for all the carelessly hurtful things he's done in the past. Dulcie proves a more difficult charity case than Cal imagined, but their time together eventually leads to Cal's realization that he's not just drifting: There's a specific place he needs to go and a specific person he needs to see. The title is, of course, ironic — Cal never leaves the continental U.S., and the backroads of his mind all lead inward — and his journey of self-discovery is self-absorbed even by the naval-gazing standards of pictures like FIVE EASY PIECES, to which this rambling film has been compared. The film's best moments juxtapose the apparent freedom of the road and the personal prisons that so many of its characters make for themselves: They're moving, but they're not actually going anywhere. Freundlich elicits strong, subtle performances from all concerned, but Cal is an unpleasantly shallow and immature character with whom to spend 110 claustrophobic minutes, and his emotional revelation smacks of childish finger pointing — deciding who's to blame for your unhappiness isn't necessarily insightful. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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