This is one of those road movies that would like to tell you a lotta things about women,the universe,the better life,the terrible solitude of the brilliant architect from Manhattan who severs all links with everyone,including his three years old child -which may seem irresponsible to some-Actually the hero wins hands down when it comes to selfishness and the scene with his old school pal ,which begins as some kind of good old days conversation and ends on a threatening note is the oasis in a desert movie.

The scene with-the-father-who-left-home-when -I-was-a child has been told and told and TOLD.Of course it did not prevent the offspring from making his way of life.And when you see the hero's wife's attitude ,you may think she must never have heard about woman's lib.

The best is the soundtrack which includes superb songs by Willie Nelson,Tom Waits or Bonnie Raitt...But you can enjoy them without this tedious pretentious work.

What a waste of talent -- although it appears that Crudup in real life is a lot more like the vapid, self- absorbed, character-less character he portrays in this disappointing movie.

In art, sometimes the empty spaces reveal more than the painted or created content. What this movie reveals is the unconsciousness and the contradictory/competing, unresolved impulses/consciousness of the film's director/writer. It unintentionally shows the LACK of awareness that a truly evolved, deeply aware character should have and be tormented about in order to deserve audience empathy or sympathy OR the lack of which is used to serve as a cautionary tale to the audience. But this film fails on either level in that regard.

The fact that Cal, the main character (very much an ANTagonist, not a protagonist in the true sense of the word),has no empathy for anyone, especially those most deserving of it (which does NOT include him) and that he has such overblown, entitled, self-pitying, whiney sympathy only for himself, combined with the hallmark lack of remorse and no sense of guilt or awareness of his impact on others -- all converge in this film to make him the epitome of the self-involved, developmentally arrested, narcissistic sociopath -- somehow this is now the gold standard for males on film and in the world at this point and time.

One of his counterpoints (James LeGros) states with a laser-true flash: "I bet you haven't done one good thing in life -- and I bet you won't". It captures the absolute essence of the Cal character. Something the other characters he bulldozes over in the film seem to realize fairly quickly despite the director having stacked the deck to manipulate sympathy for Cal. That is a testament to the supporting cast's talent and skills.

Cal's eventual 'return' has nothing to do with character development, transformation or evolution of consciousness. It has only to do with the ultimate capitulation that until something better comes along, he may as well be back in his comfy cozy status quo of entitled enablement where the living is easy and no one will demand that he grow up--something of which he is willfully incapable and uninterested in doing.

The film could have been pointed and intentional about showing the traps and tragedies -- the devastating effects of this kind of lack of conscience/ consciousness, but it excuses and glorifies it instead -- in fact, it wallows in self-pity right along with the arrogant, selfish, emotionally stunted main character.

(and it sure sent chills up my spine when thinking of the recent revelations about convicted murderer Scott Peterson).

If you want to see Crudup at his most nuanced and full of an exciting potential that has never been truly realized in my opinion, see the underrated 'Inventing the Abbotts' ....

This curiosity filled the screen on Sundance recently and I found myself watching it right through to the end. In it, a thirty-something married man panics when he finds himself psychologically strained by an excess of responsibility on the one hand and too much testosterone on the other. Thus begins a cross country flight in his appropriately yuppie Volvo station wagon to find himself.

What happens next is almost as preposterous as the apparent idea that there is anything likable about the guy at all. Like Tom Ewell in The Seven Year Itch, actor Crudup mugs his way through the vicissitudes of meeting one improbable and willowy blonde, brunette, or redhead (all of whom seem to be taller than he) after another. Each one is either too smothering or loony, offering him the altogether too-easy option of dumping them as he makes his way to Oregon to link up with his estranged father, who proves just as selfish and unpleasant as himself -- thus hastening a predictable conclusion in which he finally gets exactly what he doesn't deserve.

It is not so much that there are innumerable geographical goofs in the film that annoy the hell out of me (most of it was either filmed from helicopters or in odd parts of Oregon and Alabama -- say what? -- including sudden impossible changes in weather and one shot of the Minneapolis airport with mountains in the background),but rather that the main character exudes an ambiguity unrelieved by a plot that goes nowhere.

One interesting and commendable feature, however, is that of showing out-of-sequence flashes in his head that are alternately dreamlike and threatening. Although it's been done before, there is much to be said about this cinematic device as displayed here.