He decides to make a pit stop in Fallon to meet up with one of his childhood friends, Joely (Jena Malone), who he also has had a crush one. But she has grown up quite a bit since he has seen her last and once they get to Reno, she gives him ecstasy. After a night out on the town, they come back and he almost has sex for the first time (he was a little too excited about the thought and well... yeah). The next day he goes to the address and stumbles upon an amateur porn set. He talks briefly with the director who knew his brother and is informed that Arlen was working at a pet store in Sacramento. When he goes back to the hotel to tell Joely, he finds her with two strangers. She seduces him into driving the three of them to Mojave so they can pick up a car from a junk yard.
Halfway to Mojave, and after a few more phone chats with the mysterious voice - who he know found out is Kate (Zooey Deschanel) - he finally sees Joely for the girl she really is and not the girl he had a crush on. Sick of being side track he tries to leave and go to Sacramento without them, but instead they take his car and leave him at the hotel. He starts to hitchhike to Mojave, so he can get the car and head to Sacramento. Along the way he is picked up by a helpful stranger, who along with his gun, helps him get the car back. As Mercer finally heads up to Sacramento, he tells Kate that things are over with Joely and he is back on track. When Kate finds out there was another woman she gets upset and hangs up the phone on him. Distraught, he finally makes his way to the pet shop in Sacramento, but when he asks the group that works there if they have seen Arlen one takes off running. It turns out they got into a bit of trouble with the law and now all have to do community service thanks to Arlen, who they last heard was in Los Angeles. They give Mercer a number of someone that may help find him. When he returns to his car, he sees someone trying to break in, He runs to stop them but instead finds Kate trying to break into her own car.
The story continues from there, but I don't want to give away the ending. Like I said before, I may be being hard on this movie because I've watched too many independent movies in a row but here we go. The story seemed to move a little slow. It started out at a good pace but after a few of the cities I started to get bored. Also it seemed for awhile everyone he was running into was a little perverted and when sitting in public it wasn't what I wanted to be watching. It had some great performances in it though. I was especially surprised by the beginning but ever since hearing that they cast Jena Malone as Johanna, I haven't enjoyed her work as much (Let's just say I would NOT have cast her as Johanna). At times the color palette seemed a little weird. Very blue and green and seemed a little desaturated. Plus they had jump cuts for no reason. It was a little distracting. Especially if your bored with the story. Now considering the movie elements I thought I would have loved this film. I love road trip movies. I find myself always being jealous of the freedom that comes along with being on the road that long (of course they never seem concerned with money and are always loners but that's beside the point). Plus it had a homage to one of my favorite scenes from Band of Outsiders. But, the characters he met along the way just seemed a little too extreme at times. I've traveled long distances on buses, so I get that you usually meet weird people. But, I've never met anyone like any of these characters (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).
Rating: ***
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