Candy Mountain

A witty anti-road-movie with a subplot on the nature of the artist. Julius (O'Connor, who looks streetwise but plays with aching vunerability) is young, broke, and dreams of rock star fame and fortune. He lands a job with a dodgy band and an assignment to track down Elmore Silk (Yulin), a reclusive, masterly maker of acoustic guitars. Things don't go well: Julius loses his girl and car at the first gas station. From then on, his search is determined by providence and a host of (perfectly cast) off-the-wall characters - a glamorous Frenchwoman (Ogier) stuck out in the middle of the prairies, a father and son laying down the law in barely inhabited North Canada, a woman who kidnaps him for company. As Silk's plaid-clad brother, Tom Waits rasps credibility into the script, telling Julius to 'play golf instead of travelling without knowing where you're going': so begins a steady undermining of the road as a symbol of freedom. The journey ends in Nova Scotia with our James Dean-ish hero humbled by the road but not quite broken. It's left to Elmore Silk to hammer the nail in the coffin of his ideals. Not beat and not downbeat, the general message is a reaffirmation of life after Kerouac.