eventually arrives at its heart, as simple self-reflection meditation.
World Traveler (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:66
Fresh:23
Rotten:43
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Heavy symbolism and a repulsive lead character make World Traveler seems like a long trip.
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Cal (Billy Crudup), is a man in his mid thirties, living in New York City, with a loving wife and a baby. But when he becomes frustrated with his family life, he follows his most immediate... Cal (Billy Crudup), is a man in his mid thirties, living in New York City, with a loving wife and a baby. But when he becomes frustrated with his family life, he follows his most immediate instincts--he gets in the car, and simply drives away. This straightforward yet shocking decision is the event that begins WORLD TRAVELER, in which Cal comes under the microscope of psychological observation. He embarks on a road trip that leads him down strange paths and introduces him to an eclectic cast of world-weary characters. Dulcie (Julianne Moore) is one of these people, an emotionally wounded woman who is desperately searching for her lost son. As Cal scans through memories of his family life, patched into the film through vivid flashbacks, he also absorbs his new, wholly unsettled, lost, listing life. Through his encounters on the road, and his conversations with the strange but fascinating Dulcie, he eventually finds a new perspective on his family life. Directed by Bart Freundlich, whose THE MYTH OF THE FINGERPRINTS carried a similar theme of looking at life with introspection through outsider's eyes, WORLD TRAVELER deftly uses the talents of both Crudup and Moore and allows them to propel the film into its nearly dreamlike crossroads between living life and just thinking about it. [More]
Starring: Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore, Karen Allen, Liane Balaban
Starring: Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore, Karen Allen, Liane Balaban, James LeGros
Director: Bart Freundlich
Director: Bart Freundlich
Screenwriter: Bart Freundlich
Producer: Tim Perell, Bart Freundlich
Studio: ThinkFilm
Reviews for World Traveler
Though writer/director Bart Freundlich's film ultimately becomes a simplistic story about a dysfunctional parent-child relationship, it has some special qualities and the soulful gravity of Crudup's anchoring performance.
It believes it's revealing some great human truths, when, in reality, it's churning ground that has long passed the point of being fertile.
A first-class road movie that proves you can run away from home, but your ego and all your problems go with you.
Shot like a postcard and overacted with all the boozy self-indulgence that brings out the worst in otherwise talented actors...
Crudup's screen presence is the one thing that holds interest in the midst of a mushy, existential exploration of why men leave their families.
Somewhere inside the mess that is World Traveler, there is a mediocre movie trying to get out.
A poky and pseudo-serious exercise in sham actor workshops and an affected malaise.
World Traveler might not go anywhere new, or arrive anyplace special, but it's certainly an honest attempt to get at something.
I, for one, hope Freundlich gets another shot at a feature. And if he gets it, I hope he proves he knows what to do with it.
One senses in World Traveler and in his earlier film that Freundlich bears a grievous but obscure complaint against fathers, and circles it obsessively, without making contact.
At its worst the screenplay is callow, but at its best it is a young artist’s thoughtful consideration of fatherhood.
The film's needlessly opaque intro takes its doe-eyed Crudup out of pre-9/11 New York and onto a cross-country road trip of the Homeric kind.
Whatever complaints I might have, I'd take [its] earnest errors and hard-won rewards over the bombastic self-glorification of other feel-good fiascos like Antwone Fisher or The Emperor's Club any time.
The most remarkable (and frustrating) thing about World Traveler, which opens today in Manhattan, is that its protagonist, after being an object of intense scrutiny for 104 minutes, remains a complete blank.
God bless Crudup and his aversion to taking the easy Hollywood road and cashing in on his movie-star gorgeousness.
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