THE OPEN ROAD Justin Timberlake cuts such a cocky, carefree figure in his videos and on Saturday Night Live that it’s surprising (not to mention physically uncomfortable) to watch him struggle through The Open Road, a weak pulse of a father-and-son road drama. Timberlake plays Carlton, a slumping Texas minor-league ballplayer whose ailing mother (Mary Steenburgen) asks him to track down his estranged father, Kyle “Lone Star” Garrett (Jeff Bridges), a celebrated retired slugger who spends his time charming fans at conventions and uttering Dan Rather–worthy down-home expressions like “That girl’s finer than the hair on a frog.” With his supportive ex-girlfriend Lucy (Kate Mara) by his side, Carlton flies to Ohio to retrieve dad, but complications force the trio to drive back to Texas, which provides many opportunities for random conflicts and heartfelt conversations — and for viewers to check their watches. Unceremoniously dumped into theaters without advance screenings, The Open Road isn’t an unwatchable howler — instead, writer-director Michael Meredith’s film is merely dull and obvious. As for Timberlake, his success as a pop star is attributable to his graceful nonchalance, which registers as awkward shallowness when set against The Open Road’s leaden, earnest conventionality. Even worse, only one of the two male leads sings during the film — and it’s not J.T. (Sunset 5) (Tim Grierson)
ORGIES AND THE MEANING OF LIFE To maintain erections while bedding a succession of women, Baxter (played by writer-director Brad T. Gottfred) fantasizes that he’s surrounded by a bevy of sexually compliant partners from his past, including his strap-on wearing ex-wife, who sodomizes him. These imagined orgies aren’t just about orgasm, however, they’re part of Baxter’s quest to resolve his existential angst. Working with the earnestness and philosophical depth of an undergrad film student, Gottfred (a sexy, average-Joe type) blends familiar tropes: the struggling writer trying to get past a mental block; the son trying to wiggle out of the shadow of an overbearing religious father; the male artist forcing the roles of muse and savior on the women in his life. The sum isn’t freshness; it’s tedium. Dialogue ranges from exposition-heavy to cutesy (“I think I’m stalking you. Please stalk me back”), while the performances are little better. Orgies’ lone strength are its animated sequences, in which Baxter’s stick-figure stand-in embarks on a quest to find a portal into the 3-D world. Though the symbolism is heavy-handed and the writing as clichéd as in the live-action scenes, these interludes have an energy and poignancy otherwise lacking in the film. (Grande 4-Plex) (Ernest Hardy)
PLAY THE GAME In 2007, Waitress established that octogenarian TV legend Andy Griffith still had game as a sly charmer, but Marc Fienberg’s poky romcom does his legacy no favors by casting Griffith as an accidentally subversive caricature of his Mayberry prime. “Grandpa’s horny,” declares Griffith’s lonely widow Joe with sitcom believability, and, in a parallel twist on boob-tube history, his estranged son is played by Ron Howard’s goofy brother, Clint. But this Lifetime-ready comedy is hardly provocative — let alone perceptive, funny or fresh — so the respect Fienberg might’ve earned for addressing the love lives of the elderly is squashed by its insipid A plot, in which Joe’s playboy grandson, David (Paul Campbell), must learn to grow up and stop single-mindedly chasing pussy. The young pick-up artist teaches the old dog some gimmicky tricks, buying his gramps a baby blue tracksuit and backward baseball cap, and offering him piggish formulas that begin like: “Step 1 ... reconnaissance.” The reversal is predictable: David suddenly schemes for monogamous companionship with characterless cutie, Julie (Marla Sokoloff), while Joe pops Viagra and humps half the retirement home. We’re thankfully only treated to a chaste closeup of Griffith’s doughy puppet face as he’s getting head — think Avenue Q. (Music Hall; Town Center 5) (Aaron Hillis)
THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY Beware films in which characters have been saddled with ironic names: in Toronto playwright Ed Gass-Donnelly’s multihyphenate debut feature, This Beautiful City, Kristin Booth plays a perpetually wasted prostitute named Pretty. Along with her strung-out boyfriend Johnny (Aaron Poole), Pretty occupies the lowest rung of Toronto’s social ladder, but, as Gass-Donnelly’s script (adapted from his own play Descent) labors to illustrate, a loftier economic perch is no guarantor of happiness, either. The film’s first act finds Johnny and Pretty bearing witness to the maybe-accidental balcony plunge of condo-frau Carol (Caroline Cave), previously seen bitching at her husband, Harry (Noam Jenkins) — the implication being that this well-manicured young woman opted for suicide over one more day in upscale-young-married hell. But Carol survives and the film continues, with the two couples brought into each others’ orbit through a series of elaborate (and generally predictable) narrative contrivances. After establishing at length that we’re dealing with spectacularly damaged people (but, of course: This is a Canadian drama) the plot works itself into a melodramatic lather of anguished breakups, cross-caste hookups and looming violence, shot in a ragged blur of super 16mm — that tired, ersatz signifier of urban “reality.” The only real notes of authenticity are struck by the actors, and even then, only on the distaff side. Booth — last seen as one of the Young People Fucking — plays against her looks without descending into grotesquerie, while Cave, playing a woman in the midst of a troubled convalescence (as she did in David Christensen’s excellent Six Figures), gives a physically fearless performance. (Grande 4-Plex) (Adam Nayman)
