States

States is the first movie from writer/director Zach Gayne. It's a "transient road film featuring an array of young drifters wandering throughout the U.S. with varying degrees of purpose, or lack-thereof." Obviously, many are going to compare it to Linklater's Slacker, which is probably the closest film I can think of that captures what this is all about. The press materials refer to it as "an outsider's love letter to America and the searchers of its endless highways." Alex Esso, who was the lead character Sarah in Starry Eyes and will play Wendy Torrence in the upcoming sequel to The Shining, Dr. Sleep, stars. From a trip through the homes of the stars in Hollywood gone wrong to a religious trip in the desert and an Uber driver taken in by an actress, the intertwined tales of this film are all off the beaten path. Your capacity to enjoy them will depend on your ability to enjoy conversations that often meander.

Was there a script? A plot? A director? Who knows? This movie drags on and on, with terrible production value. I mean, I get that not using a steady-cam is a creative choice, but having your synced music louder than the character dialogue in many scenes made it even more unwatchable. The editing is worse than 1st-yr-film school-sloppy, and the characters either aren't believable or lack any depth. If the filmmaker just wanted to take a cool road trip across the lower USA, perhaps he can do that next time without subjecting the rest of us to some self-indulgent, disorganized vanity project.