2007, USA
Adventure, Drama, Romance
READ THE REVIEW AT The Desert Sun.
Extended version:
Conner Layne graduated at the top of his high school class, found a wife-to-be and was ready for Berkeley when life threw a wrench in his plans. Though he may have intended on running away, Conner leaps ahead onto a better path.
Emerging director Thomas Whelan created with Brian La Belle the sort of story anyone hopes to tell his grandchildren and the kind of movie through The Art of Travel that tempts viewers to head to the airport with no planned destination.
Though it begins lightly with the valedictorian ("Malcolm in the Middle's" capable Christopher Masterson) about to wed his young bride, circumstances find the traveler alone in a foreign country unable to speak the local tongue, robbed of both money and naivety. What could continue as a hostel-hopping romp instead leads to a test of endurance and motivation.
Just as Conner prepares to return home, he meets a couple who have planned an expedition to cross the Darién Gap dividing Central and South America between Panama and Columbia. Impassable by foot, impossible by car, the area represents the only hole in the Pan American Highway. The crew of seven push and drag a jeep of supplies through water, in mud and over rocks to reach the other side. Why? The question becomes why not.
Chris and Darlene Loren act as parental guides to the young wisecrackers, and time is passed by all with jokes and sympathetic muscle aching. The year it takes them to cross the passage introduces them to hostile guerillas and friendly native societies, but the story never hovers in distracting action or ethnocentric melodramas. Rather, the film focuses on the need for a connection with other cultures and a better understanding of our own ethnic backgrounds.
The film is a love letter to wanderlust. It is for anyone who has considered trading in their return ticket home for a one-way ticket to someplace far outside of the usual comfort zone and anyone who has groaned over the standard two-week American vacation limit. No one in the film is snapping photos or writing postcards; everyone is absorbing an experience that will better shape them as living beings.
Whelan's film may not be perfectly polished, but he holds promise for a smooth future. The central character evolves with the film, which only gets better as the minutes pass. The film is not merely a travelogue, but rather it serves as good motivation to check the expiration date on one's passport and the next flight out of the country.