Cast: Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore, Cleavant Derricks, David Keith, James LeGros, Karen Allen, Mary McCormack, Liane Balaban
Director: Bart Freundlich
Producers: Bart Freundlich, Howard Bernstein, Tim Perell
Screenplay: Bart Freundlich
Cinematography: Terry Stacey
Music: Clint Mansell
U.S. Distributor: ThinkFilm Inc.
Every time I begin to doubt the existence of the "sophomore curse", another movie comes along to convince me of it. The latest exhibit is Bart Freundlich's misfire of a second effort, World Traveler. Five years ago, Freundlich released his feature debut, The Myth of Fingerprints, a low key drama about a holiday family reunion. That production introduced Freundlich as a filmmaker to watch. Unfortunately, World Traveler is such a disappointment that it makes one wonder who the real Freundlich is - I suppose we'll have to wait until his third feature to assemble more evidence.
I wonder why anyone makes road pictures these days. If there's a genre that has been exhausted, this is it. Through the years, we've seen almost every imaginable kind of road picture. Nevertheless, that doesn't stop Freundlich from dipping his bucket into this dry well. He probably thinks he has something special, the kind of screenplay that will cause people to forget how banal and tiresome road pictures have become. Unfortunately, he's incorrect - World Traveler is a shallow and pretentious movie that is all the more irksome because it believes it's revealing some great human truths, when, in reality, it's churning ground that has long passed the point of being fertile.
Billy Crudup plays Cal, one of the most dislikable, self-pitying cretins to show up in a motion picture this year. Weighed down by his job and family pressures, Cal simply walks out on his wife and young son and begins traveling the country, trying to find himself. Cal then proceeds to "befriend" an alcoholic, whom he pushes off the wagon before attempting to seduce his wife. And that's just for starters... During the rest of his cross-country odyssey, Cal leaves a wake of broken hearts and ruined lives behind him.
It's difficult to know whether Freundlich expects us to sympathize with Cal. He certainly wants us to understand him. But the character is so shallowly written, and his dialogue is so inane, that it's virtually impossible to get a sense of who this man is, or why we should care about him. Billy Crudup does a credible job, as do Julianne Moore (Freundlich's wife) and James LeGros, who play two of several people misfortunate enough to cross Cal's path, but more than solid acting is needed to save this motion picture.
The end of the film is its biggest disappointment. Without revealing specifics, I can say that it rings so false that its betrays whatever small kernels of truth Freundlich had previously uncovered along the way. World Traveler is a huge disappointment - the kind of motion picture that makes you actively angry at the filmmaker for subjecting you to it and stealing two hours of your life.
© 2002 James Berardinelli