The Travel Companion’ movie review: a poignant and enjoyable comedy-drama
The Travel Companion is an enjoyable comedy-drama, a character-driven tale that examines friendship, creativity, ambition, envy, and human relationships at their most awkward and ambivalent.
It is the first feature film for co-directors Alex Mallis and Travis Wood, who wrote the script in collaboration with producer Weston Auburn, creating a plot built around the pains and disappointments of aspiring filmmaking. It particularly explores both sad and comical issues unique to male friendships; the directors once observed, “if men could talk to each other, this film would be over in ten minutes.” Following its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and a round of festival screenings, The Travel Companion will be released in theatres on April 10th.
Central character Simon (Tristan Turner) is a novice movie director whose enjoyment of the creative aspects of his work is being eroded by the fruitless search for recognition and funding, while maintaining a rather silly day job that involves taking videos of taxicabs. His one professional advantage is being able to travel to desirable filming locations.
His best friend, Bruce (Anthony Oberbeck), works for an airline and is able to offer free airfare to one travel companion per flight, a benefit he regularly provides to Simon. This happy situation changes when Bruce forms an attachment to the charming Beatrice (Naomi Asa, in her feature debut), also a filmmaker, and Simon ceases to be his friend’s preferred travel companion. This not only affects Simon’s film work, but it also leaves him feeling the loss of a personal support system he had come to rely on.
The fun, slow-paced film follows Simon as he tries to promote his work, his flimsy attempts to project self-confidence revealing a great deal of uncertainty and confusion about what he is trying to do with his current film. Tristan Turner does an excellent job at expressing Simon’s insecurity, both personal and professional, making him equally pitiable and annoying.
The longstanding friendship between Simon and Bruce comes across nicely through brief clips of their casual, easy conversations, which cover a little serious matter and a great deal of random nonsense based on shared jokes and mutual experiences; while Beatrice is not merely ‘the girlfriend,’ but a strong character who challenges Simon’s wishful thinking. The filmmakers accomplish a great deal using carefully selected glimpses which reveal key points about characters, places, or situations, enhanced by quirky camera work and a spare, unusual musical score.
Surprisingly, much of the story is reality-based, including some of the more unlikely details; directors Mallis and Wood referred to “quirky things that happen to film people,” some of which were written into the plot. During a public Q&A, the directors noted that their approach to filmmaking is somewhat similar to Simon’s, particularly his tendency to film “everything”, with only the vaguest of plans, then “find it in edit”. The Travel Companion was also completed against all odds, having an impossibly scant budget.
The team spoke highly of the mutual help often provided between low-budget filmmakers, along with what the directors called “a series of small miracles”, which helped them to complete this project. The co-directors relied on profit-sharing, allowed almost no time for rehearsal, and cut costs wherever humanly possible. This included borrowing shops and restaurants belonging to friends as film settings, using amateurs for group scenes and minor roles, and hiring novice actors for lead roles. The latter decision worked out particularly well, the three lead actors providing excellent, very natural performances.
The story continues as a nicely understated moviemaking-based movie. It tracks the breakdown of the two men’s friendship due to Simon’s resentment and jealousy, and at the same time follows Simon’s breakthrough as a filmmaker as he finally begins to find his voice – something that is expressed in an amusingly apt metaphor in the final shot.
The comedy is poignant, the characters and their interactions are relatable and true to life in this deceptively simple character study.
