Agnes Bruckner, Gorgeous Blonde, Her Films Make Us Think, Deeply

If you’re honest, sometimes don’t you just want to get up and go?

Leave everything behind.

Not like a Wanna Get Away commercial which means a temporary exit from self-induced embarrassment.

This departure would be a permanent exit from your old extremely disappointing way of life.

It would be the gateway to a new unpredictable adventure.

Films designed for box office appeal can be effective at portraying the life that we want, but will never have, often leaving us temporarily elated and in the long term, very depressed.

Honest movies, mostly independent films, are good at penetrating and portraying how we actually really feel, giving us hope.

Even if it is a false one.

Sam Shepherd’s character Walter Faber found this out in ironic fashion in the 1991 cerebral hypnotic classic film Voyager.

Having recently survived a life altering plane crash, American engineer Walter Faber decides to forgo flying and crosses the Atlantic Ocean via ship. Once aboard, he falls in love with fellow passenger Sabeth (Julie Delpy), a gorgeous young woman who reminds him of his former love (Barbara Sukowa). Faber and Sabeth pursue an intimate affair, and he joins her on a journey across Europe to her home in Greece.

A powerful revelation will force an important decision from many.

It could be seen again with Parker Posey’s character in the Independent penetrating dramedy Broken English.

Nora Wilder (Parker Posey), a single woman, is heading deep into depression as a result of disappointments in her professional and personal life.

A series of disastrous dates convinces her that love will always elude her. At a co-worker’s party, she meets Julien (Melvil Poupaud), a young man from Paris, who sweeps her off her feet and for a few days they live the life of adventure.

He then invites her to France to be with him. That’s when reality sets in.

We see it once more in the 2009 film Against The Current.

Paul Thompson (Joseph Fiennes) is a writer who lost his wife and child a few years back.

He and his best friend, Jeff (Justin Kirk), have discussed swimming the length of the Hudson River since they were kids. Paul asks Jeff to come along with him on his trip to finally swim the river. Jeff agrees and brings along one of his friends, Liz (Elizabeth Reaser). Paul is determined to reach the end of the river by a certain date, August 28.

Jeff and Liz have no idea the importance of the date Paul has chosen until they realize that the date they are supposed to finish the swim is the anniversary of his family’s death.

Paul intends to commit suicide.

Having said all of that, when we saw that one our favorite actresses Agnes Bruckner, who looks Australian in the way that Melissa George does but was born in Hollywood, literally, was starring in a new independent film about another adventurous road trip entitled There Is a New World Somewhere, we had to watch.

Agnes, to her credit, seems to often involve herself in film adventures that invariably meander down dangerous highways (Blue Car, Murder By Numbers, The Anna Nicole Story, Breaking The Girls, Kill Theory).

Indie adventurous road trips strongly risk becoming a cliché as the following review at filmjournal.com expresses in their dissection of Agnes new film.

They analyze, “These days, it seems like everyone wants to be a filmmaker, and everyone has a story they feel they need to share. In the case of There Is a New World Somewhere, it’s hard to find anything original or compelling enough to set it apart, other than the return of its talented star, Agnes Bruckner.

It’s a romantic drama following a twenty-something New York artist named Sylvia (Bruckner), who we meet as she’s let go from her dead-end job serving drinks at a Chelsea art gallery. She goes back home to Texas for a college friend’s wedding, where she meets a musician named Esteban (Maurice Compte) at a party. After going out on one date, he convinces her to drive to Nashville with him.

That’s the set-up for what becomes another indie road movie that explores the relationship between strangers who have just met. It does little to explain the fact that it never makes sense for Sylvia to travel all the way to Texas, just to turn around and go off on a road trip with a perfect stranger.”

We agree with their assessment. Sort of.

Many Indie films do indeed explore the relationships of strangers who have just met at a fork in the road moment of their lives like the previous three films that we described.

What they have in common is that the fork in the road adventure promises change from a life with many pieces missing from the life fulfillment puzzle and if something is not done to alter the momentum, more pieces will fall off the table.

Where they all differ is what form the change merchant will shift into.

We think it actually does make sense for Sylvia to travel all the way to Texas, just to turn around and go off on a road trip with a perfect stranger.

Why?

We suspect like most artists, Sylvia left Texas for New York expecting to realize her dream as a wildly successful and profitable artist who will make a name for herself in the Big Apple.

When that dream fails miserably, an invitation back to Texas to be a part of a story unfolding where one of her college friends that she wasn’t close to is about to find happiness (marriage) and didn’t have to leave home to do it, can be a little overwhelming.

So Indie cliché or not, we can relate to Sylvia just like that leaving the wedding pre-party and getting into a car with a handsome stranger to go through an adventure driving through the South that she doesn’t know.

We would do it in a heartbeat.

Thank heavens every road trip fantasy, for just once, is not one headed to France (Broken English, Revolutionary Road, Frantic…to name a few).

Or a local escape from the doldrums with a handsome French Guy (Unfaithful).

So at least this road trip is a departure with a handsome guy from Cuba.

Did There Is a New World Somewhere digress into a few Indie Road trip clichés?

Yes.

There is the passionate sex, low end motels, experiences with strangers you hope you never see again, initial excitement and promise that you may have found the love of your life but then as expected, reality sets in.

The key elements where the film leaves the clichés behind and gets real are with the two new lover’s expectations.

After a string of severe setbacks Esteban has given up on life’s long-term plans which involves getting up and trying again and again and again after failure.

Even when years ago he was very young, a leader and supporting a rock band of his own creation, he eventually gives up on it.

It soon becomes an Esteban life pattern.

Thus he now escapes reality and responsibility by having initially enthralling adventures with gorgeous women that eventually lead to nowhere.

He knows the outcome before he even gets there but somehow hopes this time will be different.

Sylvia on the other hand was hoping that in three days a handsome stranger would fall deeply in love with her, where as in the previous 365 days, none have.

That’s what we liked about the movie.

We knew that it was going to end badly.

At some point if you truly are going to have a long-term relationship with someone, you have to accept that there will be a daily grind to it and it won’t just be one fun day in Adventureland for the next 20 years.

We have come to suspect that the hopeful life altering road trip adventure is for people who have made poor decisions in their daily lives and instead of getting down in the mud to fight and sacrifice for a new life that truly would suit them, they instead will not take responsibility that their dismal plight is self-created so they deflect and hope that a stranger will magically transform and transport them to Adventureland.

The people who have steadily made great decisions, and we’re absolutely not one of them, live the adventure everyday with family, rich friendships, a great job and a dream home with awesome city skyline views and serene backyards.

Yes they do have their adventures too.

They are called extended vacations.

Sometimes luxurious and other times exploratory in nature and down to earth.

People who have made great sacrifices, exercise self-control, are willing to change and put up with the failings of their loved ones and above all fight for their long term dreams, we suspect seldom desire life altering road trips.

That’s mostly for those of us who settled, didn’t fight for our dreams, especially when we were young and the world was our oyster, made poor decisions and blamed others, became ensnared in a slow death, debt ridden syrup zombie walk and responsibility laden lifestyle on rickety stilts designed to please others.

We are the ones that crave the road trip that will change our lives.

Sylvia’s road trip was circular. On those types of spontaneous road trips, you always end up back where you started.

At least for part of it she had a great time. Good for her.

Now the real decision making begins if any real change is to be effected.

That is deeply important because Sylvia does seem on the verge of settling for a life with a seemingly successful young man introduced to her at the pre-wedding party who she will probably never truly love but will agree to the security of marriage in the day time and dream about adventures with handsome strangers at night.

Bad decision. Don’t give up. Keep thinking and asking about what do you really want? No matter how crazy it sounds. It may not be readily apparent.

Once you find out what that is, do whatever it takes to methodically get there.

It’s worth it.

We give the film high marks that Sylvia’s story didn’t have a happy ending.

Running away from life seldom does.

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OPENING PHOTO via Ecowallpapers.net

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0115671/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3281502/

http://www.filmjournal.com/reviews/film-review-there-new-world-somewhere 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_English_(2007_film)