I was full of hope when I read it was a take on "Little Miss Sunshine" but set in Iran. I love road movies, two of my favourites being Five Easy Pieces and Thelma and Louise, but Hit The Road left me confused, frustrated and ultimately disappointed.
The script is awful. An endless rambling of insults and an incoherent narrative of vague references.
The characters are extremely unlikeable; the father just mumbles, lights endless cigarettes and stares off into space. The mother yo-yo's between tenderness and rage. The eldest son drives the car and says nothing of importance and the 8 year old is just precocious and annoying.
As for the story...we are supposed to work this out for ourselves. It appears that the eldest son has done something terrible and they are fleeing across Iran in a borrowed car so they can smuggle him over the border. But what has he done? Why are they all travelling? What's with the father's leg in a cast and why is the dog ill? None of this is explained.
And then there are scenes that are just bonkers: They knock a cyclist off his bike and then they give him a lift for about 10 minutes, after which he gets back on his bike and disappears.
The father lies on his back in some kind of spacesuit rambling on about Batman.
The mother randomly runs off only to be found by the dog which is dragging a chair behind.
The mother flicks through a photo album of her favourite bed wetting pictures. Weird!
Yes, the cinematography of Iranian landscapes is good, the music isn't bad and I understand how hard it is to make this kind of movie with all the reprisals of Iranian censorship. But film makers still have a responsibility to the public when they go out for an evening and buy a ticket.
This film is a mess. It fails to engage the audience and comes over as, well, very dull.
The script is awful. An endless rambling of insults and an incoherent narrative of vague references.
The characters are extremely unlikeable; the father just mumbles, lights endless cigarettes and stares off into space. The mother yo-yo's between tenderness and rage. The eldest son drives the car and says nothing of importance and the 8 year old is just precocious and annoying.
As for the story...we are supposed to work this out for ourselves. It appears that the eldest son has done something terrible and they are fleeing across Iran in a borrowed car so they can smuggle him over the border. But what has he done? Why are they all travelling? What's with the father's leg in a cast and why is the dog ill? None of this is explained.
And then there are scenes that are just bonkers: They knock a cyclist off his bike and then they give him a lift for about 10 minutes, after which he gets back on his bike and disappears.
The father lies on his back in some kind of spacesuit rambling on about Batman.
The mother randomly runs off only to be found by the dog which is dragging a chair behind.
The mother flicks through a photo album of her favourite bed wetting pictures. Weird!
Yes, the cinematography of Iranian landscapes is good, the music isn't bad and I understand how hard it is to make this kind of movie with all the reprisals of Iranian censorship. But film makers still have a responsibility to the public when they go out for an evening and buy a ticket.
This film is a mess. It fails to engage the audience and comes over as, well, very dull.