‘On The Road’ Trailer is for the Mad Ones

By  · Published on March 12th, 2012

Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” is so thoroughly based on the beauty of language that it will be interesting to see what kind of movie it will make. It’s the kind of dream project that elicits nightmares because it’s incredibly popular, but it’s also that rare case where a book is fiercely personal no matter how many millions of people read it. Walter Salles took on the challenge, and his background in road movies certainly helps, but there are some x-factors here to be sure.

Sam Riley sounds appropriately gruff and wandering in voice over in the new trailer, but the movie will also be a test of whether Garrett Hedlund and Kristen Stewart can really act or if they can only chew gum and walk.

Check it out for yourself:

What’s striking here is that the look of the project isn’t aggressively indicative of the period. The cars are there and some of the styles, but there’s something that just doesn’t seem antique about it, and maybe that’s the point.

Fortunately, it still looks feverish and sweaty, and with any luck, it’ll be a maddeningly unstructured and untethered as the book itself.

Would you see it?

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.