‘Desert Road’ Is a Tight Genre Thriller That Explores When One Should Give Up On Their Dreams

By Seth Freilich | Film | March 17, 2024 |

By Seth Freilich | Film | March 17, 2024 |

Desert Road opens, fittingly enough, with a car driving down a long desert road. Claire (Kristine Froseth) is on a long-distance trip from Los Angeles to Iowa for reasons that the film will explain later. After stopping at a gas station for fuel and road trip sustenance, her GPS tells her she has a 300+ mile straight shot to her next turn. Unfortunately, minutes into that stretch, a mysterious text distracts Claire for a brief second, leaving her car stuck on a rock (it sounds silly, but it is not played for laughs and is effective at the moment). A tow truck blows right past her, cell phone coverage is spotty (and there’s no working data or GPS), and the gas station attendant, Randy (Max Mattern), is a grade-A creep, etc. At this point, the film has all the makings of a bland horror thriller.

But writer/director Shannon Triplett is not interested in bland and definitely is not interested in horror (other than, perhaps, the existential horror that unfolds). Triplett throws some genre into the mix. Claire is not simply stuck in the middle of nowhere because of her car. She appears to be more universally stuck in the middle of nowhere because no matter what direction she walks, she always winds up back at her car. While the film sets it up at first that she may just be severely concussed, it quickly becomes clear that something has indeed happened - there is her car, the gas station, and a nearby secured factory. That’s all there is.

As Claire tries to figure her situation out, she spends some time on the phone with her mother, which is a smart way for the film to give us some character background and development with Claire without having to resort to costly flashbacks or gimmicky talking-to-nobody monologues. This is how we come to learn that her trip is basically her quitting and giving up on the dreams that drove her to Los Angeles. It’s a concise way to get us to understand where Claire is on her life journey as we watch her also try to figure out what the hell is going on.

If it feels like I’m tip-toeing around giving anything away about that central mystery … correct. While spoilers would not ruin the viewing experience, they would take away from one of the best parts of the film. Many viewers will figure out some of the broad strokes early on, but there are some finer points that the film still unpacks as it goes (and some may not know what’s up until late in the film when it finally shows you the cards up its sleeve). This is not to suggest that what Desert Road does is new or fantastic and, like many genre films, there are plenty of cracks to be found if you really unpack it. But it’s a fun journey to take.

While that genre play is one of the film’s strengths, it has two other things going for it. One is Triplett’s direction (with a big assist from her editing team). While the film feels like it was a relatively low-budget affair, it does not look like it was. It’s tightly paced and beautifully framed, and the viewer never loses sight of the geography of this perplexing situation. The second thing is Froseth, who is tasked with a heavy load of carrying the film in front of the camera. She has been good in prior works (particularly last year’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline), but she really shines here. She is tasked with relaying a lot of emotion, often without having a scene partner to do it with via dialogue. She not only holds your attention, but she lets you in, which draws you into the emotional aspect of this genre mystery.

Her performance is so good, in fact, that the film’s biggest flaw sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison - which is Mattern’s Randy. The film does one thing with his character, which I cannot give away without significant spoilers, but it feels like a very cheap trick to keep the viewer off the path of quickly figuring out what is really going on. Putting that aside, the character is both written and performed in ways that don’t make much sense. While Claire feels realistic and grounded, Randy comes off as a movie thriller stereotype. While the film is not completely a two-person show — Ryan Hurst, Frances Fisher, and Beau Bridges all show up in smaller roles and deliver exactly as you’d expect each of them to — it really is mostly a twofer. And any film like that is going to suffer when one of the duo is underwritten and overperformed.

While that all may be a strike against the film, Desert Road still works. When the genre mystery is fully unpacked and we are in the end game, some of the mechanics of it all feel a bit wonky, going back to my earlier comment about how you really shouldn’t try to unpack it. But the final act also ties the genre angle to Claire’s personal journey regarding her dreams. And while it’s a little treacly, it lands and delivers a satisfying conclusion.

Desert Road had its US premiere at SXSW 2024. It doesn’t have a release date yet (because it doesn’t have distribution), but it feels destined to wind up on a streamer where it would be a perfect Saturday night low-key watch.