The Go-Getter

Road movies are meant to go somewhere. Sure, the plot to Martin Hynes’s The Go-Getter does reach a destination but by the time it happens the story is so figuratively lost in its wallowing abandon that it’s hard to care. Lou Taylor Pucci (Thumbsucker) stars as Mercer, a hapless young dreamer who steals a car and sets off to find his estranged half-brother and break the news that their mother has died. Along the way, Mercer meets a colourful range of five-minute bit players, including a drugged out, manipulative Jena Malone, a hippie-ish Judy Greer, a cheque-bouncing, pet loving Maura Tierney, not to mention Zooey Deschanel, the very forgiving and completely naïve car owner who ridiculously falls for Mercer after a series of phone calls (she left her cell in the car, so he answered it, you see). Hynes makes use of the great American landscape as Mercer makes his way down the West coast, allowing his protagonist to soak up all of the defining teenage experiences — drugs, drinking, driving and sex — in order to find himself. It’s as if he had a checklist beside his laptop to ensure he included the requisite clichés previously employed in just about every indie flick involving self-discovery. Mercer opens the film saying he had a problem with Huckleberry Finn because it made him feel stuck; I have a problem with The Go-Getter because it didn’t really make me feel anything. Hynes offers a commentary, though there seems to be a glitch on my copy because after three tries it never comes on, which is likely a good thing since there’s little he could do to defend this run-of-the mill effort. A game of 20 Questions with Hynes, some cast members and a producer does actually work, and so does the test footage, which is a waste of time.