Road trip drama 'Boundaries' breaks down along bland route
“Boundaries” - ★ ★ ½
Shana Feste's sputtering road movie “Boundaries” boasts a well-cast assortment of flawed, eccentric characters traveling a long, long stretch of dramatically flat terrain.
Laura (the always watchable Vera Farmiga) has few financial assets, but an abundance of cats and dogs crammed into her small Seattle home, along with her smart, but bullied, socially challenged 12-year-old son Henry (Lewis MacDougall).
Her clothes smell like cat urine and she apparently has problems arriving on time at work as an assistant something-or-other.
When Henry gets expelled for drawing nude sketches of the principal, Laura must consider sending her son to private school. But how will she pay for that?
So, she makes a deal with the devilish Jack (Christopher Plummer), her estranged 85-year-old father, about to be bounced from his senior citizen home for his inability to conform to rules and laws.
If Jack will finance Henry's education, Laura will reluctantly drive him in his vintage gold Rolls-Royce (resembling something 007's nemesis Auric Goldfinger might own) to southern California where he'll live with her sister (Kristen Schaal).
Off they go on Hollywood's most well-traveled road (the one to peace, understanding, acceptance and love) with $200,000 worth of high-grade marijuana in the trunk, something Jack forgets to mention to Laura.
Like the recent Helen Mirren/Donald Sutherland travel drama “The Leisure Seeker,” “Boundaries” squanders an excellent cast in a slow-moving star vehicle with nary a speed-bump of potent conflict to shake things up.
Plummer, now 88, supplies “Boundaries” with a crowning performance, a slithery, subtle mix of con man charm and dashing bravado. He sparks on the screen, especially opposite Peter Fonda's laid-back Joey, a rich, retired drug dealer from the old days with Jack.
Laura, Henry and Jack cross paths with aging hippie and former art-forger Stanley (Christopher Lloyd, still channeling Doc Brown from the “Back to the Future” trilogy), who enjoys a close relationship with his mentally challenged son Jed (Halldor Bjarnason).
It's the kind of relationship Henry would like to have with his ne'er-do-well dad Leonard (Bobby Cannavale), a self-centered cad who abandoned his family.
Laura reluctantly lets Henry see his father (he conveniently lives not far away) to ask some burning questions.
But Leonard ignores Henry, thankfully thwarting what could have been an unconvincingly happy Hollywood finale on Feste's road trip adventure that renders seat belts unnecessary.
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Starring: Vera Farmiga, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Lloyd, Louis MacDougall, Bobby Cannavale, Kristen Schaal
Directed by: Shana Feste
Other: A Sony Pictures Classics release. At Chicago's Century Centre and River East, plus Evanston's Century 18. Rated R for drug use, language, nudity. 104 minutes