Drive Back Home (2024)

Road trip/buddy movies are one of my favorite film genres, primarily because of the myriad possibilities they afford for pairing up unlikely traveling companions journeying together under diverse, unexpected and often-outlandish conditions. And, when filmmakers figure out how to make the most out of these scenarios, their finished products are often entertaining, enlightening, and, above all, engaging. That’s very much the case with writer-director Michael Clowater’s debut feature, an insightful, sensitive, funny and touching story of two very different brothers on an unanticipated road trip through Eastern Canada. In this fact-based story set in 1970, Weldon (Charlie Creed-Miles), a cantankerous, blue collar plumber from small town New Brunswick, learns that his long-estranged gay brother, Perley (Alan Cumming), has been arrested on a morals charge for public indecency in Toronto. Authorities offer Weldon an opportunity to bail out his sibling, with all charges dropped, as long as he agrees to retrieve him and return him to his rustic, far-removed hometown, essentially taking him off the hands of the local police. However, the alternative, if Weldon declines the offer, is a five-year jail sentence for Perley, an outcome he has difficulty justifying, especially when his spry, elderly mother (Clare Coulter) assertively shames him into rescuing her baby, a request driven by her desire to make amends for regrettable considerations tied to the family’s past. Despite his obvious discomfort with the nature of this venture, not to mention the many inherent inconveniences involved in this 1,000-mile road trip in an old, unreliable pickup truck, Weldon relents and makes the drive to the big city to collect his brother. And, after a somewhat adversarial reunion, they set out on the return trip to their collective roots, a prospect Perley doesn’t particularly relish for a variety of reasons. Their challenge-filled journey is subsequently filled with an array of ups and downs, laughs and arguments, and more than a few recollections and revelations, developments that test the relationship of the two mismatched siblings. But, these conditions aside, the result is a tender, redemptive yet sometimes-trying reconciliation as they make their way back to New Brunswick and a very uncertain future. While a few of the sequences are a tad stretched out, they nearly always achieve their intended objectives, providing viewers with an involving, delightfully whimsical but sometimes-dark tale that’s sure to please, tug at the heartstrings, and shine a bright light on their respective issues, failings and awakenings. This is made possible to a great extent by the outstanding performances and character development of the two leads, whose deftly developed chemistry feels completely natural and never forced. But, perhaps most importantly, as with most successful road trip films, “Drive Back Home” effectively shows how disparate personalities can grow and evolve over time through an eventful shared experience, even among those who start out with differing, even antagonistic, outlooks on one other’s lives and circumstances. This release is easily one of the best offerings to come out of this year’s Reeling Festival, a movie undeniably worth one’s time.