Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Sundance Film Festival (virtually, of course). “One For The Road” was definitely on my list, as the plot intrigued me from the start. This Thai film checked all the boxes for me: fun, lighthearted road trip mixed in with a dying main character and the need to make amends. Boss, a party-loving bar owner/lady’s man in New York gets a call from his ex-best friend Aood, who reveals that he has leukemia. Aood begs Boss to come back to Thailand and take him on a road trip to see and apologize to all of his ex-girlfriends before his time on Earth ends.
At first glance, it may seem like a cross between “50/50” with Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and “The Hangover.” The result, however, is extremely surprising. Instead of going down the comedy line, “One For The Road” embraces its melodrama and goes into crazier and more depressing depths than anyone could have anticipated.
Straight from the beginning, we see Boss’ fast-paced and stylized life in New York. But then all slows down when Aood calls him and tells Boss of his news. That alone describes the movie: ultra smooth with fancy camera and lighting work at one moment, and then depressing and slow the next. The swing of emotion makes for a cool effect, one that director Baz Poonpiriya capitalizes on often.
I genuinely have no problem with the entire first half of the film. It’s nice to see the contrast between Boss’ New York and Thailand, and having Aood deliver mementos to his ex-girlfriends is not only sweet but makes us sympathize with him as a character. Throughout, we get to see flashbacks that reveal how his break-ups came to be, and seeing Aood at least attempt to make amends is heartwarming. Meanwhile in the first half, Boss is simply along for the ride, having nice moments with his friend and giving him helpful advice.
After around the hour mark, it seems to switch into an entirely different movie. “One For The Road” becomes heavily reliant on flashbacks, mostly before Aood or Boss ever met. This is where I think the movie completely fails the characters. For one, pre-Aood Boss is completely different from how we see him in the present. Instead of the fast-talking lady’s man he is today, he’s a scrawny kid with little to no confidence. The contrast is so huge that it almost seems like he’s a different character. Some would say that the difference of a character over time is good character development, but I would argue that it’s just lazy writing.
Anyway, in the flashback, Boss meets a girl named Prim in Thailand, and they move to New York together. Prim starts to work all the time and it puts a heavy strain on their relationship. The twist is, Aood and Prim have the same job, and are becoming closer and closer. This is where the movie really fell flat for me: Boss starts becoming very possessive of Prim, even going as far as saying that he will force her to only spend time with him all the time. Naturally, they break up, and Aood is there to comfort Prim. But when Prim rejects Aood’s advances on her, he gets angry as well, causing her to flee from New York altogether.
These sides of Aood and Boss made me wonder why I was rooting for them in the future altogether, when the only reason they became friends was because of the mutual rejection from Prim. In the end, they just seem like crappy people, and it’s disheartening to see them that way for the rest of the movie.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s fairly predictable. Another problem was the sheer length of it (137 minutes) that bloats it to another degree.
“One For The Road” had an absolute joy of a first half. But when you mold your character into a different one just to manipulate the plot, it becomes difficult to root for this Frankenstein’s monster of a character. I do believe the intention was the notion that everyone has flaws and it’s important to look past them, but when our main character’s relationship is built not just on the foundation but the celebration of those flaws, it becomes a little hard to take.
