Like them or not, some books become icons, a symbol of an age. Jack Kerouac's On the Road is undoubtedly one of those. Again, like it or not. I myself have mixed feelings towards the book. I definitely enjoyed when I read it in my young age, as do plenty of other young people who are somehow dissatisfied with the monotone, prosaic, boring world they live in. It also went on to become the icon of the beat generation and, beyond that, a whole decade (the 1960s) when people experimented with everything in sight. Everyone was hungry for new experiences. Everyone (well, almost) wanted to try new things. Because, if they knew one thing, it was that they certainly didn't like the world they lived in. So, on they went, they hopped into cars, vans, trains and buses, and traveled around in search of a deeper truth or, at the very least, the answer to their ails. In any case, then, after many years, when I come back to the book it doesn't truly have the same feeling to it. Obviously, nothing changed in the book, but plenty changed in me. But let's leave the comments about the book for a review I will publish on this website some other day. Perhaps after I re-read it once more.

So, I suppose what I mean is that the stakes were set very high for this movie. On the Road could not be like any other ordinary movie. It had been in waiting mode for too long, perhaps because nobody dared put the story in film. Perhaps because what truly attracts about the book is the prose, the style, as well as the overall atmosphere, and that is quite difficult to put into a film. Walter Salles, the director of The Motorcycle Diaries (another film about an epic voyage), had the courage to take on the challenge, and he delivered some mixed results.

Let's see. Since I haven't read the book in many years, I don't remember exactly all the details. So, I cannot speak for the overall accuracy of the film (in the sense of whether or not it is faithful to the book). However, that is not the key consideration, I think. When it comes to the adaptation of a book into a movie, how faithful the movie is to the letter of the book is not as important, I believe, as how faithful it is to the overall spirit, the atmosphere. In that sense, I think that Salles does a decent job. I see here the same deep insatisfaction with their lives and rejection of the conventional mores that imbued the beatnik spirit in the 1950s and first half of the 1960s. Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty, Old Bull Lee, Carlo Marx... all these characters (some of them are actually fictional characters based on real life literary figures, such as William S. Burroughs or Allen Ginsberg) live as they go, improvising constantly, from relationship to relationship, pennyless, without much to eat but plenty to drink, always meeting new people, traveling around, attending (and organizing) wild parties, experimenting with drugs and, above all, with a complete disregard for the conventions of the bourgeois society that surrounded them. They couldn't care any less about building a career or being "successful". They only cared about living in the moment and moving on. That the movie does reflect very well, I think.

Now, as I said above, this is not to everyone's liking. Simply put, there is no there here. There is no story in the traditional sense that most viewers have come to expect (i.e., a well defined plot). Hence my comment that most regular folks will simply not like this movie. Especially since there is no happy ending. As a matter of fact, there is no clear ending in the regular sense either. There is no sense of closure, which is what most people expect in the movies (and novels). But none of that is Salles' fault. It's just the way the original book is too. In that sense, I don't totally share the criticisms of those who say that the movie departs too much from the book, or the ones who say that it does not truly express its spirit. I think it does.

Incidentally, allow me one brief digression. It has become a common place (at least among the literati) to talk about characters such as the ones depicted in this story as "liberated", "free" and "spontaneous". Sponteneous they may be, for sure. However, it's not so clear to me that they are truly liberated or free. Sure, they do as they please (or so it seems; I'm sure there must have also been plenty of grudge work and monotonous days in their lives, although those never made it to the pages of a book). They also have a clear disregard for social conventions and the well defined path that society put together for them. They rebel against all that. However, I submit that making an exhausting, daily effort to live a life that is exactly the opposite of what mainstream society prescribes is, far from liberating, clearly falling in its cobweb. It's nothing but the old duality trap. From the moment that one sees liberation as doing exactly the opposite of what society says, one has done nothing but to become dependent on said society. One has cornered himself into a purely reactive position. The characters of On the Road, then, are only rebellious in a very inmature sort of sense. Or, better said, they are indeed rebellious, but their rebellion leads nowhere because they choose to identify their path precisely as the opposite of what mainstream society is and does, therefore depending every single second of their life on the very same oppressive society that they reject. That's the paradox. Given this, it's not surprising that it's especially teenagers and youngsters who feel attracted to this book. That is not to say that On the Road does not have any literary merit. It does, especially since it continues being a key book to understand the spirit of its age. It also portrays very well the angst of a group of people who just don't fit into a mass society build for the crowd, for the average joe, and where "being yourself" truly means "succeeding" within the set of rules established by society itself. The problem I see is that, contrary to what many literati may believe, these people are in reality a clear example of the nihilistic tendencies of our own modern society. In other words, they are not the alternative, but rather society's own excretion. They are a clear example of what happens to those individuals who refuse to submit to the majority.

All this takes me to another consideration. I cannot avoid feeling some sort of nostalgia for an era when even some bums (how else could one call Neal Cassady, represented in the novel by the character of Dean Moriarty?) viewed literature (and the arts in general) as a liberating force. By now, sadly, nothing matters anymore. Literature (like any other art) is just a commodity, a product to be sold. There is no depth in it. No further meaning. No other aim. There was a time when the aspiring writers wanted to write the great American novel and, sometimes, as in the case of Kerouac with this On the Road, they got close to their objective. Not anymore. Most writers, mosts artists these days just want to make a quick buck. They want to succeed. To become rich and famous. Neither the creators nor the audience see literature or the arts as a liberating force anymore. There is no catharsis to be achieved. Just mere consumption. Capitalism has won in all fronts and we all live in a vast supermarket with the shelves overflowing of objects, many of them interchangeable and with a very short shelf life.

Overall, the movie is just OK. It's not great, but it's not bad either. Anyone interested in the beat generation, literature or the bohemian lifestyle will enjoy it, I think. On the other hand, regular folks who watch regular movies (you know what I mean, the usual Hollywood blockbuster) should stay away. I am convinced they will find nothing here that will speak to them.

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Entertaiment factor:6/10
Artistic factor:6/10
Intellectual factor: 6/10

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