ROAD TO NOWHERE MOVIE MOVIE

Yet even his film takes a back seat to his growing obsession with Laurel that neither his closest friends nor the film’s consultant - Waylon Payne, playing a North Carolina insurance agent on the Duran-Tachen case who pretended to be a house painter in L.A. Mitch isn’t interested in finding out what really happened to Velma and Tachen he wants to create his cinematic version of the events, which comes as no surprise from any director. As the former, he literally phones in his role most of the time from locales such as Cuba, Rome and London, which serve no purpose other than to show he’s got money to globe-trot the world. To muddy the waters further, the same person (Cliff De Young) plays both Tachen and the actor Cary Stewart in Mitch’s film. Instead he chooses unknown actress Laurel Graham (Shannyn Sossamon), who resembles the real Velma and is actually involved with Tachen and Velma’s father in something that is never explained in this confusing plot.

ROAD TO NOWHERE MOVIE MOVIE

The opening credits list “Nowhere’s” director as Mitch Haven, a self-absorbed auteur (Tygh Runyan) taken to saying things like “I’ll always do another take for deeper truth.” When he decides to make a movie about real-life couple Velma Duran and politician Rafe Tachen, who committed fraud and perhaps faked their own deaths in their small North Carolina town, Mitch immediately rejects Scarlett Johansson and Leonardo DiCaprio because he doesn’t want name actors who will just make his movie lots of money. Audiences can either fight it, trying to make sense of the shaky plot, or flow along with the film’s languid, doomed romance accompanied by the southern poetics of singer-songwriter Tom Russell. Is he hired in the inner story or the outer story? Actually, he seems to suggest the existence of a third, still more encompassing story, that involves Mitch's meta-role in both of the others.Yet they’ve created a hybrid of their own - arthouse pulp. Is he calling, then, into the inner movie or into the movie about it?įurther complicating matters is the existence of Bruno Brotherton ( Waylon Payne), a detective whom Mitch hires. It is unclear to me, however, which movie Rafe is in - or if he's in both. Rafe is also much seen in the movie, sometimes calling in from Rome. Velma and her partner in crime, Rafe ( Cliff De Young), died in the crash of a small plane into a lake, we are told. The film doesn't consider the question of who, therefore, is buried in the grave.

The possibility is left hanging that Velma faked her death and changed her name to Laurel, which would go a long way toward explaining Laurel's reluctance to accept the movie role. But everyone notes that Laurel looks exactly like Velma. We gather that because Laurel visits her grave. On her blog, a 'real' crime was described, and Laurel apparently greatly resembles Velma Duran, one of the perps, who is now dead. This fraud was blogged about by Nathalie ( Dominique Swain), who we learn is the person watching the DVD seen at the beginning. We see Laurel acting in apparently fictional scenes involving a fraud case. These often take the form of wise teacher and attentive student. He spends a great deal of time in earnest discussions with her that men use to impress their importance upon women.

She doesn't think of herself as an actress. We see Haven working with an actress named Laurel Graham ( Shannyn Sossamon), who he has discovered and persuaded to play her role.

So is the outer film about the making of the inner one, or are the two films simply not synched in time and space? And for that matter is there a third level, a 'reality,' that neither film completely reflects? The 'inner' film is being made by a director named Mitchell Haven ( Tygh Runyan), who has the same initials as Monte Hellman. The DVD is titled 'Road to Nowhere.' So therefore this film exists outside another film of the same name. The film opens with a shot of a DVD being loaded.

Road to nowhere movie