Seaward Journey

Amiable if unremarkable Uruguayan road-movie in which a fistful of familiar smalltown types – cheery lottery-seller, simpleton street-cleaner, grumpy gravedigger, difficult Basque drunk – are driven by their trucker friend to see the sea for the very first time. The stranger who joins them – a writer or a bank-robber? – serves as our surrogate observing the pilgrim’s boozy, argumentative philosophising with wry bemusement. The comedy and characterisations are a bit too broad, and nothing surprises, but the film retains a lazy, dog-eared charm.