Backroads
In a perfect world, Alex Ullom’s feature debut — about an infinite road trip to nowhere — would indeed be the beginning of a long, brilliant career
It was just supposed to be a short drive. That’s all — a quick jaunt from Point A to Point B, a chance to catch up and decompress after a hectic semester. School’s out, and Tyler (Mitchell Cole), a former member of the military, has offered to drive three of his longtime pals — Fisher (Noah Toth), Day (Akira Jackson), and James (Phinehas Yoon) — home from college. Conversations range from meme prompts regarding the deadliness of hawks versus gorillas to summer internships. Everyone thinks James’ first-day-of-new-job outfit is giving “first communion drips” vibes. Everyone wants to know why Tyler broke up with his girlfriend. It’s all very kickin’ back, no big deal, twentysomethings style.
These old friends are so focused on their back and forth, however, that Tyler suddenly realizes that they’ve been on the same stretch of road in the middle of the woods for a while. He thinks he might have missed a turn somewhere a few miles back. So he turns the car around and starts driving back the way they came. Nada. Just the same tall trees, the same lush greenery, the same densely forested areas on either side of them. Tyler is so busy scouring the landscape for some sort of off-ramp that he almost doesn’t see the wall of foliage that seems to have mysteriously materialized in the middle of their path. The GPS on their phones seems to suggest this was the way they’d come earlier. But now their way is blocked. James gets out, starts looking around.…
