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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
Crudup is the best navigator a road movie like World Traveler can have, but even he can't single-handedly transport these goods from nowhere to somewhere.
Basically the 'Flee Adult Responsibility, Find Freedom but Also Trauma Along the Highway' script that every film school grad student writes, but most of which thankfully never make it to production.
The only reason for watching such a shallow and worn drama is because of Crudup's subtle performance.
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.
A pretty but empty portrait of a vacuous character...the picture doesn't get very far or go very deep.
Deserves commendation for its psychological cogency and compassion, but it loses significant points for its lazy story and complacent delivery.
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.
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