UNFAMILIAR with the antics of the Beat Generation and not having read Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel of that name, I approached Walter Salles’s film of it with a clear head uncomplicated by any sense of obligation to identify its real-life characters for you here.
I found it good, transcending a bum-numbing 155 minutes. Its foundation combines parts of the US landscape not often seen in mainstream cinema with observations of young men and women learning to survive freedom during major social, intellectual and economic changes in war’s immediate aftermath, underpinning the eternal complexities of relationships.
The story covers Kerouac’s years when his doppelganger Sal (Sam Riley), wanting, even needing, to write a book, observes America’s natural and built environments in the company of young men and women unwittingly developing the Beat Generation subculture. They drive gas-guzzlers from the heyday of American car-making – Hudsons, Lincolns, Buicks – along roads less travelled, steal food from wayside stores, drink perhaps more than was good for them, possibly lay the foundations of the ‘60s sexual revolution by enjoying sex with numerous partners of various erotic preferences, encounter the collapse of relationships, deliver and sustain emotional abuse.
As a cinema experience, it ticks all the good boxes.
At Dendy
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