Reviews for this film from our members:
- Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema [Italian]
- Excerpt: Questa versione puo’ forse andare bene per i frequentatori di multiplex, che nulla sanno di Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs e che si divertiranno a riconoscere il protagonista di Tron sposato alla vergine di Twilight ed un curioso signore con gli occhiali che assomiglia ad Aragorn.
- Chris Barsanti @ Film Journal International
- Excerpt: Walter Salles’ hypnotic riff on Kerouac’s American hymn to raw freedoms captures the texture of boho lives, and remembers that deep down, it’s a love story between two men.
- David Bax @ Battleship Pretension
- Excerpt: I would absolutely recommend that you read On the Road instead of watching On the Road. Hell, read almost any book, for that matter.
- Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Desperately in awe of its source material, and does not attempt to turn it into an interesting, enjoyable, or even functional narrative drama.
- Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Riley eventually somewhat grows into his role, but Hedlund grabs us and never lets go.
- Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Kimberly Gadette @ doddle
- Excerpt: Derogatory dismissals of prosaic visual experiences have been around since, well, someone was bored to tears. To the poetic hyperbole of watching paint dry, or grass grow, we can now add: watching a writer write.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Tiresome and relentlessly feverish, it never captures the spontaneous exuberance or rhapsodic wanderlust of the Beat Generation.
- Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: True to the Roman candle vividness and floundering yet desirous spirit of Kerouac’s work, a rich and marvel-studded misfire, whilst resisting being another classic illustrated, a demystification that finds raw humanity under the sainted prose.
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: If you didn’t know that Jack Kerouac’s novel was a seminal influence on postwar America, you would never, ever guess it from this lifeless, soulless, pointless adaptation.
- Danny King @ The King Bulletin
- Excerpt: This theatrical cut of ‘On the Road’ runs 124 minutes, and it’s largely unsurprising, given the film’s satisfying understanding of the source material, that an extended cut would probably be even better.
- Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
- Matthew Lucas @ From the Front Row
- Excerpt: Salles has been on this road before with much more success, and this trip just feels gratuitous, lost in its own haze of beatnik navel gazing.
- Piers Marchant @ Sweet Smell of Success
- Excerpt: The beats prove yet again they won’t go gently into cinematic iconography.
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Makes you feel as though you’ve just woken up from an all-time bender: disoriented, confused, and wondering why you just put yourself through it.
- Simon Miraudo @ Quickflix
- Tiago Ramos @ Split Screen [Portuguese]
- Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: It’s a movie that should have been made 60 years ago, when its sex, drugs, and wanderlust story had the power to shock and inspire.
- Stephen Saito @ The Moveable Fest
- Excerpt: From AFI Fest, many surprises are abound in the respective adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s legendary novel from the director of “The Motorcycle Diaries,” from a seductive turn by Kristen Stewart to keeping its worship of its iconic status in check.
- Amir Siregar @ Amir at the Movies [Indonesian]
- Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Salles’s movie is a cause for celebration — the kind of celebration where everyone in attendance puts down their inhibitions and acts with all immediate integrity of soul. You don’t get that kind of feeling from many movies.
