Crossroads of America

Directed by Gabrielle Muller, Crossroads of America follows Laura Sampson Hemingway’s Sandy as she attempts to find her own path away from her overbearing mother (Kaye Tuckerman’s Glenda) and wheelchair-bound sister (Natalia Ortonowska’s Ellie). It’s a familiar yet workable premise that’s employed to consistently (and increasingly) unwatchable effect by Muller, as the filmmaker, armed with Hemingway’s spare screenplay, delivers a predominantly incompetent drama that’s been littered with a whole host of unappealing elements – including amateurish performances, eye-rollingly avant-garde images and sequences, and a score that’s often ear-bleedingly obnoxious. Far more problematic, however, is Muller’s inability (or refusal) to offer up a single interesting, compelling character, as Crossroads of America‘s proliferation of astonishingly disagreeable protagonists prevents the viewer from working up an ounce of interest in or sympathy for their low-key exploits – which, in turn, dulls the impact of the movie’s cathartic final few minutes. The final result is a hopelessly overwrought and avant-garde endeavor that does, for the most part, feel like a bottom-of-the-barrel film-school project, and it’s clear, ultimately, that even the most open-minded and easygoing of viewers will be hard-pressed to find much of anything worth embracing here.

no stars out of ****