Along for the Ride Movie Review: This ride had the potential to be so much better

Written and directed by Sofia Alvarez, Along for the Ride is based on Sarah Dessen’s young adult novel of the same name. Alvarez, who is no stranger to adaptations in the young adult genre (she wrote the screenplay for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and its follow-up, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You), misfires with her directorial debut. The film does have some potential, especially with its fairly earnest all round acting display. It is the writing, however, that affects it adversely. This may not necessarily be within its control as the source material finds itself rubbing shoulders with an eerily similar fare of the past. 

An intelligent, questioning young woman from a broken home and on the brink of college decides to spend the summer with her father and his wife in a small beach town. The finding yourself / making sense of your existence sort of narratives in the young adult genre seem far too many (at this point) for one to take notice of anything new unless they’re vastly different from that which is already doing the rounds. Along for the Ride may be watchable, but it could well have been a mash-up of films you’ve seen before. There are innumerable instances in the structure where the story seems to coast, almost as if it isn’t sure about what next. There exist narratives in which the employment of stillness (characters staring into space, being contemplative, and so on) works well, just not here. I am aware it is easier to exhibit interior monologue on the page (exploring a person’s general mood state, in the process) as opposed to the screen, and that Alvarez is attempting to be as true to the book as possible, but the lead character’s thinking shots in Along for the Ride fail to elicit much of a response.

Director – Sofia Alvarez 
Cast – Emma Pasarow, Belmont Cameli, Kate Bosworth, Andie MacDowell, Dermot Mulroney, Laura Kariuki, Genevieve Hannelius, Samia Finnerty 
Streaming On – Netflix 

The precocious and bookish Auden (Emma Pasarow) has just graduated high school, deciding to spend the summer with her father and his wife in the small beach town of Colby. A loner who doesn’t quite fit in with her more exuberant peers, she chooses to introspect and internalise, maintaining a diary to express what she’s going through. Listening to her parents fight at night as a child made her into an insomniac, something that continues to this day. Her mother, an eminent college professor, doesn’t believe the trip will help her daughter find herself or even aid in understanding her father. At Colby, Auden receives an unenthusiastic reception; a father who has work to finish (so he can’t join her for lunch) and her step-mother Heidi busy tending to her months-old infant. She gravitates to a popular hangout for the town’s kids, feeling quickly out of place there. On Auden’s frequent nocturnal visits to the pier (to read, write and observe), she notices a boy of a similar age riding his BMX bike up and down the wooden quay. An unexpected acquaintance is made when he accidentally spills her coffee and ends up commenting on the book she’s reading.

The chemistry between its leads works in the film’s favour. Auden and Eli (Belmont Cameli) are cut from the same cloth (intense, questioning individuals), though the latter believes in living for the moment more than his counterpart. It is an awkward beginning between the two, especially when Auden finds out Eli knows quite a bit about her life; Colby’s a small town, and Heidi brags about her all the time, apparently. Even the quest Eli draws up (a bucket list-type thing) for her to experience a more regular teenage life, helps in the bonding, These parts pan out nicely in the grander scheme of things, with the natural acting prowess of Emma Pasarow and Belmont Cameli in this initial phase, the story’s undoubted highpoint. It is the conflict that doesn’t capture as much of the imagination, though. Eli’s whole mysterious persona and past are not handled as deftly as they ought to have been, and this failing points to the writing. Extended stretches of the narrative feel as if they are suited only to the book (my guess would be the aspects of interior monologue, contemplation and staring intensely into the distance), and due to their uncomfortable adaptation to screen, the plot drags. The music, however, does fit the tone of Along for the Ride, be it when Auden and Eli are in the car on their adventures or when she is alone with her thoughts. The dysfunctional relationship she shares with her absentee father (and Auden’s observation of the past repeating itself through his new family) does have immense potential, but barely any focus is accorded to it. If it were executed better, this debut effort by Sofia Alvarez may well have been more interesting.