From Left to Right: OW Grant, Neal Oliver, and the Eightball
Interstate-60: Episodes of the Road became, suprisingly, my favorite quirky movie for this year, possibly ever. At it’s most basic form, it is a Coming-of-Age story, but i’ts just so unique and awesome. It’s a feel good movie and a comedy and just a quirky movie of American fantasy.
The story starts out at a bar, because apparantly all great stories start out at bars, as explained in the voiceover by Neal (James Marsden). Neal is the golden boy, main character, but the most intriguing character is O.W. Grant (Gary Oldman), the answer to America’s wishgranter myth. He’ll almost never play it straight with you, because he just likes to fuck around.
In Neal’s world, he is an indecisive, struggling artist with dreams of a woman he ends up sketching or painting away, while his girlfriend psychoanalyzes him and his Dad tries to force him into law school. While at his 22nd birthday lunch, Neal announces his wish aloud after being urged by Grant: He wants answers. And the best way, in Grant’s eyes, to give him answers is to knock him out with a paint can.
This leads, in the hospital, to a visit from Ray (Christoper Lloyd) and a deck of very unusual playing cards, meant to test Neal’s perception. But then Ray disappears, and life becomes not quite so normal. Things are just slightly out of place of normalcy and Neal decides to follow the signs– literally. While at work he sees a billboard with the picture of the girl he’s been drawing on it. This leads back to Ray, who gets Neal to deliver a package for him to Danver, down a highway that doesn’t exist.
A lot happens within the first twenty minutes to accurately explain what happens in I-60, but it gets easier after that. It’s just your typical fantasy road trip, full of danger, intrigue, romance, lawyers, drugs, and art. Whether it is the art, as seen in the art world or the art as seen by Neal, or the art of Life. “All of them answers, and all of them reasonable.”
This film is fun because there aren’t any rules once you reach Interstate-60 in the story. Anything can happen, and most things do. Neal learns about what he could have become as well as what is happening all around him, from slavery disguised as ecstasy to how a man decides to fill up the last days of his life.
The treat is all of the unique characters who bring out both the fantastical parts of the story and a level of stricking realism. Not one character is perfect, but they know what they want and are honest about it. It could be considered a weakness in story telling, a cast of one dimensional characters just created to feed a plot-driven story, but I think that’s the charm of the story. Part of seeing in a new perception is meeting all of the characters along the way.
If there is a fault in this movie, it’s that they clearly ran out of budget for some sound effects because I’ve heard better in Saturday morning cartoons.
This movie is a treat and I consider it a must see film. Even you don’t like it afterwards, it’s an important film to watch.
