Dead End "Road"
Posted by Redgrrrl26 on:
Dear Iceland-
I really want to like your cultural exports, but you're making it kinda difficult. I feel for you, what with the collapse of your major banks and all. Sadly, your film Kings Road, like so many of my dates, started out great but then went so horribly wrong.
What happened?
When I first met Junior and his friend Rupert at the beginning of the film, things looked so promising. Junior takes Rupert along on a visit home to Junior's dad, Senior (no kidding), ostensibly on a tour of Iceland. Of course Junior has ulterior motives, he needs some cash from dear old dad, who coincidentally isn't very happy to see his first born and is now living in a run-down trailer park. So far, so good.
As we roll along and meet the zany supporting cast of the trailer park, things still look ok. There's pregnant Rosa and her loser husband Ommi; Senior's girlfriend Sally; brothers Ray and Davis who shake down drivers at their crosswalk; the dictatorial cab driver hell-bent on enforcing trailer park rules; and Junior's own wacky grandma who carries a dead seal stuffed with cash.
But then things start to go a little weird. As we meander among the various trailer park residents, Junior's clashes with his father and with Rupert, and granny's hot-boxing in a car with a couple of punk rockers, it starts to feel like nobody's really in charge here. Who exactly are all these people and what do they want?
I think that was what I struggled with most, Iceland. So many relationships were left vague (Rupert and Junior: friends, lovers, something else?) and character motivation was mostly non-existent. Big things would happen and then just as quickly be forgotten. Bottom line, there were just too many characters who each had their own story being shoehorned into what should have been Junior's movie.
And really Iceland, I'm pretty bummed about the whole thing, because there were some laugh-out-loud moments in Kings Road as well as some great one-liners ("Be grateful. Nothing is so bad that it can't get worse."). Perhaps writer-director Valdís Óskarsdóttir (editor of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) just tried to put too much good stuff in her film. Perhaps "it's an Icelandic thing." Perhaps...perhaps...
I'm sorry Iceland; I really did want to like Kings Road. You're a super country, you really are. I'm sure you'll find someone else who can appreciate your quirky brand of humor. And it's true what they say: it's not you, Iceland, it's me.
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