Film Review - Hit the Road

Images courtesy of Rialto Distribution.

I’m not exactly sure what happened, but what I can say for sure is that this film was a beautiful road trip.

What is the point of this road trip? It’s a wedding -  we’re sending your older brother off to his new life - no wait, we’re taking the family dog out into the middle of nowhere so that the younger brother doesn’t see what will happen to it in its old age... No, actually it’s just a nice trip with the family to go camping in the hills as balaclava-clad menaces roar past on dirt bikes and you’re all crying…

The lack of context in just about every inch of this movie really breathes life to the sum of its parts as secrets grip the narrative because Rayan, the younger brother in a family of four, is too innocent for the real story. Delightfully, so are we for most of the runtime, which shifts from childlike innocence to grim meditation of the discomforts ahead. 

The best moments in Hit the Road are found between the shifting reasons behind why exactly we are abounding in a new rental car which survives mere minutes before being trashed by Rayan. Quiet reflections by the lakeside, long walks across small villages with a single, static, wide-angle shot feeding into the environment, and nervous moments where your greater intuition suggests not is all what it seems are the moments that shine in this snail-paced movie. 

I’ve heard of a slow-burn before, but if I told you my favourite scene contains less than 50 words, lasts for nearly five minutes, and primarily focuses on how apples taste like eggs, I don’t think I’d be doing any kind of justice to director Panah Panahi. Equally as shocking as the power of these quiet moments is the fact that this is Panahi’s cinematic debut: he enters with the confidence to tell a brutally gripping story, layered in nuance, while his father sits in an Iranian prison for doing the very same thing.

I very rarely enter movies with a pre-existing knowledge of what I’m walking into. Sometimes this leads to incredibly avoidable moments where I waste two-hours of my life on a film that was universally panned but I thought had a funny title and that’s the only convincing I need… Other times something magical happens and I find a Fargo, a Machinist, or a Hit the Road. Truly incredible films which instantly land amongst my favourites.

Hit the Road is screening in cinemas from Thursday August 25th. For tickets and more info, click here.