Highway One

A gathering of self-absorbed no-hopers sees a new year in with risible results.

We've all been there, the New Year's Eve party where it all becomes boring after a while and nobody wants to go home. Here the party is in California, hosted by Anna (Marie Botha), who has invited an old high-school friend, Nina (Juliette Labelle), among other nonentities. The guest list comprises mostly young women with a few rather suspect young men around. Suspect? Well, Nick (Vincent Santvoord) claims to be Russian but probably isn't; another is possibly gay - who knows and who cares? Not I, for one. Quite why writer-director Jaclyn Bethany assembled such a band of no-hope characters and then gave them impossible dialogue to utter is beyond me. One boneheaded guest may be counted as unfortunate, but a whole film bustling with misfits seems like carelessness. And, as they prattle on among themselves, she has found no way of making them at all interesting.

Parties can be the time and the place where you meet old or new friends or lovers, but here the inmates of an entire mental ward seem to have gathered for just one purpose - to reveal how miserable they are. Unless the scenes were improvised, I cannot see how a decent screenplay could have been constructed in any credible fashion. It seems more like a series of audition pieces made up as they went along, and there's no character here that I would wish to meet in person. The guests are all self-obsessed to the point of no return, leading hedonistic lives without any purpose. They try to give every appearance of having fun but the enjoyment is only skin-deep.

As these partygoers gather round the hot tub or pair off to satisfy their sexual needs, we the audience are left to wonder what it's all about. As one female emotional cripple pleads to be shown how to cry, another is gobbling down the host's goldfish for no reason at all, unless the live seafood tastes better than the house canapés. And why Highway One? A possible reason for its inclusion is perhaps as the only route outta there, even though it seems to be just a cul-de-sac, a dead-end leading nowhere. And, as for the event itself, given a choice I would prefer any other cinematic party by the likes of Blake Edwards, Guy Hamilton, Mike Leigh or Sally Potter. Now theirs were parties really worth the invitation.

Original title: Highway 1 .

MICHAEL DARVELL

Cast: Juliette Labelle, Aisha Fabienne Ross, Vincent Santvoord, Marie Botha, Greta Bellamacina, Dan Shaked, Sadie Scott, Colette McDermott, Bailey Edwards, Joe Gillette, Belle Aykroyd.

Dir Jaclyn Bethany, Pro Mikhail Makeyev and Rebecca Morandi, Screenplay Jaclyn Bethany, Ph Irene Gomez-Emilsson, Pro Des Lisa Garcia, Ed Rebecca Morandi, Music Dalal Bruchmann and Maesa Pullman, Costumes Daisy Stackpole.

Bettye Katherine Edwards Films/Neon Heart Productions-Bohemia Media.
90 mins. USA. 2021. UK Rel: 5 November 2021. No Cert.