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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
EL CAMINO Erik Weigel’s ambitious, affecting, and haunting El Camino achieves its aim of delivering a serious (yet offbeat) road movie that can hold its own with some of the greats: one thinks immediately of Easy Rider, Monte Hellman’s hilarious-yet-melancholy Two-Lane Blacktop, or John Cassavetes’ Husbands (also about friends reacting to another friend’s passing). Even if Weigel’s film doesn’t quite reach the highest mark of many of these classics, it at least doesn’t fall prey to many common shortcomings of independent film: it makes a lower budget an asset rather than a liability, wisely emphasizing character and nuance over plot, and somehow never seems forced or contrived. Similar to many of the above-mentioned films, and especially the Gene Hackman/Al Pacino cult film Scarecrow, nothing much “happens” in El Camino. Fortunately, the writers have come up with characters we truly care about and end up feeling that we know by film’s end, so the plot, which rings true as well, is secondary to our connection with these characters. This connection, I believe, is rare in contemporary American film. The story is extraordinarily simple: Elliot (Leo Fitzpatrick) receives news that his childhood friend Matthew, who had endured several years with him in foster homes, is dying of leukemia. Elliot visits Matthew and says his goodbyes. After Matt passes away, Elliot meets Gray (Christopher Denham) and Lily (Elisabeth Moss), Matt’s ex-girlfriend, after the funeral. Gray then rashly decides to take Matt’s ashes down to Mexico, a place the two had often discussed. Lily is quickly recruited for this excursion, and Elliot, realizing their plan, offers to finance it, explaining his connection to Matthew to the other two, who are initially wary of him. Elliot is as sensitive, thoughtful and rational as Gray is blunt, wayward, womanizing, and volatile; Lily, it turns out, ended her relationship with Matt for somewhat obscure but mainly selfish reasons. She’s now living a lie as a stripper who leaves voicemails for her divorced mom back home in D.C. that “she’s doing great in college.” Gray has his own issues, which include despising his privileged upbringing. The journey is complicated by the inevitable sexual and other tensions between the three as they make their way down to Mexico in a weathered Volvo station wagon. A leaking radiator provides an unscheduled stopover and a dinner invitation from an unconventional Texas family man (Wes Studi), a scene that echoes a similar one in Easy Rider without imitating it too slavishly. Along the way, the film sets the scene of a post 9-11 America, as well as providing some simply breathtakingly beautiful visions of the country, without ever lapsing into clichéd travelogue. Weigel allows the characters’ back stories to develop via the sparest dialogue and Elliot’s penchant for recording camcorder interviews. This plot device elicits wonders from Weigel’s cast, like the pricelessly uncertain (and momentarily, quietly furious) look on Lily’s face when Elliot asks her (on camera) if stripping really gives her freedom to do “whatever she wants.” She’s similarly rendered speechless when he asks if there’s anything she wants to say to Matthew now: the horrific look of guilt and sadness on her face is sufficient response. Lily may have achieved some measure of autonomy, but she, like Gray and Elliot, is still rootless, searching for some kind of satisfying life path, as the film’s title implies. That the three are often at a loss to express their emotions about Matt’s death, and instead sublimate or avoid them by fighting, drinking, etc., echo the reality of such events more than most of us might care to admit. Even if
El Camino isn’t a great film, it comes close enough for satisfaction
by relying on the considerable talents of its cast, an unpretentious
script, excellent production values, and a subtle emotional impact that
may not make itself apparent right away, but when it hits, it hits
devastatingly hard.
Scott David Briggs
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