It’s not that darkness isn’t a part of the film, but that “The Short History of the Long Road” approaches even the most tense interaction with a bent toward positivity in all people. He was strongly opposed to the mixed marriage of his daughter and doesn’t want to hear anything about Seth’s Indian father who died. Grouchy old Murdock is not very happy with the presence of his grandson and is rather hard on him. With Clint gone, Simon-Kennedy folds in a steady stream of new supporting stars to challenge Nola - it’s never a question that Cheryl will eventually be one of them, but Simon-Kennedy and the film spin their wheels for far too long before she enters, played by a restrained Maggie Siff - with most of them treating the scared teen with necessary kindness. After his mother died, twelve-year-old Seth George goes to live with his grandparents on their farm. While early scenes of Carpenter emoting don’t quite works, the actress grows into the character over time, even as Nola seems less capable of understanding herself than ever. And then a sudden tragedy pulls them apart forever, and a terrified Nola must strike out on her own.
#IMDB LONG ROAD HOME MOVIE#
It may sound romantic, but it’s also claustrophobic, and as Clint brusquely gets up in the middle of a movie (that’s how short his attention span is) and Nola gazes off at a pack of “normal” teenage girls, it’s clear that the divide is deepening between them. Without a formal education, Nola has still thrived, eagerly devouring all sorts of books, though her father’s resistance to settling down means she’s never had her own library card, instead filching textbooks when she’s able. Nola’s mom is long gone - as Clint puts, “she zigged, and we zagged” - and is only referred to as “Cheryl,” and only in stilted conversation. Their entire life is each other and their trusty Westfalia van, which ably carries them on their many journeys (for most of the film, those trips are confined to the stunning American Southwest). Nola and Clint have been on the road so long that teenage Nola can’t even remember a home without wheels.
Where to Watch This Week’s New Movies, from ‘Past Lives’ to ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ While Simon-Kennedy’s characters occasionally avoids the cliches of similar movies, nothing about the film’s plotting surprises, as Nola aimlessly drives in search of what eventually amounts to a found family. In Ani Simon-Kennedy’s pleasant, if predictable “ The Short History of the Long Road,” the cracks between what Nola ( Sabrina Carpenter) and Clint (Steven Ogg) want are showing long before they’re blown wide open.Ī meandering coming of age tale that quite literally pushes off into unexpected diversions, “The Short History of the Long Road” doesn’t blaze new trails, but it does provide a platform for Carpenter’s evolving performance and Simon-Kennedy’s skilled eye. It’s not a bad life (and it’s only partially the product of Clint’s low-simmering disdain for traditional ways of being mostly, he just seems to enjoy it), but Nola is beginning to expect that there might be more out there for her. And not just moving from town to town, but state to state, criss-crossing the country alongside her beloved father Clint, barely staying in one place long enough for a sit-down meal.
#IMDB LONG ROAD HOME FULL#
The film received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the performances of Purcell and Russom.Įntertainment Weekly 's television critic Ken Tucker wrote that "director John Korty has made a limp, self-pitying little TV movie here, and the script by Jane-Howard Hammerstein is so full of vague grandiloquence that even some of the characters don't understand what's being said." Wilborn Hampton of The New York Times described the film as "a fairy-tale view not only of the Great Depression, but of the labor movement it spawned and the way its victims survived." Ray Loynd of the Los Angeles Times called it the "Best Production Based on a Novel" among 1991 drama television films which he saw.Nola has spent her entire young life on the road. It revolves around a migrant farm worker who struggles to keep his family alive during the Depression of the 1930s. The Long Road Home Rated: NR Format: DVD 509 ratings IMDb 7.3/10.0 Prime Video 14. The film stars Mark Harmon, Lee Purcell, Morgan Weisser, Leon Russom, and Timothy Owen Waldrip. Long Road Home is a 1991 American drama television film directed by John Korty, based on the 1988 novel of the same name by Ronald B.