On the Road

The two best things about Walter Salles’ “On The Road” are Garrett Hedlund’s portrayal of the life-eating, pansexual Dean Moriarty, the dominant character of Jack Kerouac’s novel (Sam Riley’s Sal Paradise is truly just along for the ride), and of course Kerouac’s invigorating words themselves: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like Roman candles across the night.” There’s always something beautiful and bittersweet about the effects of the passage of time on the relationships between young men (the women – Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams – are purely secondary), and by the end this itinerant picture packs a surprising wallop – surprising because, along the way, watching other people eat life does become a bit boring.