Movie Review: 'The Short History of the Long Road'

Parents and children are an area of drama that movies don’t explore enough. The rich layers of life in the parent-child relationship make for wonderful stories. Proof of that concept is the new movie The Short History of the Long Road, an award worthy drama that explores the life of a young woman dealing with the dual traumas of lost and absent parents. Nola, played by the exceptional Sabrina Carpenter, demonstrates beautifully how loss and absence adds up to so much of who she is.

The story of The Short History of the Long Road begins on a lovely and laconic note with Nola staring lazily out the window of an elderly van-camper combo. As we will come to find out, this is more than just a van. Nola and her father, Clint (Steven Ogg), live in this van. They’ve been traveling the country in the van they’ve nicknamed ‘The Incredible Hulk’ for nearly all of Nola’s 16 years of life.

There is an absence however, that being Nola's mother. Nola has not seen her mother since shortly after she was born. Not comfortable with Clint’s nomadic lifestyle, Mom, or Cheryl, as Nola knows her, decided to stay back in New Mexico while Clint took their daughter and traveled the country with the highways and byways to provide for them. Clint has taught Nola how to fix cars and appliances, how to get by on very little and how to take pleasure in small favors.

Unfortunately, along that road comes Clint’s fate. As the two are making their way toward a promised trip to New Orleans, the town Nola was named for, Clint suffers a fatal heart attack, somewhere in Texas. Devastated, Nola begins a journey to New Mexico. She doesn’t know enough to be able to find her mother at first but she’s hopeful. While in New Mexico she nearly loses the van and then takes on a job at a repair shop, working for a kind man named Miguel (Danny Trejo), who helps her rescue her tired van and gives her a place to stay.

I’ve given you a solid description of the plot of The Short History of the Long Road but plot is no all that important here. Like so many movies that I enjoy, The Short History of the Long Road is about a feeling of an authentic life lived. Nola and Clint’s life is slow and meandering in a way that is poetic and romantic in presentation. It’s not easy and it’s not presented as such, but father and daughter appear to have a contented rhythm to their life that works for them and I enjoyed melting into that.

The film has a pacing issue, many audiences will find the movie slow or plodding. That said, I enjoyed the languorous quality of The Short History of the Long Road. This is a movie that is about look and feel, it’s about essence as much as it is about telling a specific story. Writer-director Ani Simon-Kennedy excels at allowing space for the movie to breathe and live in a way that when the notable dramatic moments arrive we know we will have time for the impact to sink in and be felt.

This is also aided by the wonderfully open-hearted and unique performance of Sabrina Carpenter. Carpenter is never off screen in The Short History of the Long Road and while that could be overwhelming for a young actor, Carpenter bears the weight with aplomb. Her performance is weighty and deeply felt and the anguish in her heart is palpable without her having to lash out or emote in any brazen fashion.

This character, Nola, feels lived in. Carpenter and Simon-Kennedy combine their talents to bring Nola’s inner life out into the open, slowly revealing how the dual influences of the father she lost and the mother she never knew combine to create who she is, a wounded, longing, but still striving seeker. This is a young whose future is unfolding before her with no map.

The Short History of the Long Road may not be for all audiences. This is a movie that takes its time, has no problem lingering and meandering while absorbing big dramatic moments and allowing those moments to be deeply felt. Sabrina Carpenter delivers a soulful and lovely performance that captures the classic romance of nomadism and the longing for the comfort of family and stability and finding that where and when you can.