On the Road
IFC Films | Release Date: December 21, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
19
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMar 21, 2013
Notwithstanding the characters’ spiritual camaraderie, Salles’ emphasizes the hard physical labor and loneliness in Sal’s story, including the jittery rigors of the writing process. When he reaches a crossroads choice between down-and-out Dean and his own rising career, Sal senses that except for the words on a typewritten scroll, his life on the road is gone, real gone. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 23, 2012
Salles hasn't reinvented On the Road, but rather turned it into a rambling, beautiful, and occasionally even heartbreaking museum piece. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 20, 2012
Salles has lovingly crafted a poetic, sensitive, achingly romantic version of the Kerouac book that captures the evanescence of its characters' existence and the purity of their rebellious hunger for the essence of life. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 21, 2013
The result is a movie that, like the book, is episodic and has dips in energy but has more than its share of glory and illumination. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 21, 2013
On the Road is an honorable homage to the bennies-and-booze-and-bebop-driven hegiras undertaken by the fiercely dedicated anti-establishment duo. But in Salles, screenwriter Jose Rivera and company's effort to get the details right, they only get so far. And it's not quite far enough. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 21, 2013
A straightforward and rather sane version of the events described in the book and, against all odds, a surprisingly effective movie. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 21, 2013
Call it a successful failure. Some movies worth seeing are like that. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithDec 20, 2012
What's best about the film are its quick jumps from one depravity to the next as jazz rambles on the soundtrack: Youth is a candle to be burned at both ends, with (as it was once said about Bob Dylan) a blowtorch in the middle. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnDec 20, 2012
Overlong and unfocused in parts, Salles' adaptation nonetheless holds together about as well a movie can when the odds are so heavily stacked against it. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJames RocchiDec 18, 2012
If there's one thing that wounds On the Road, it's that the film is full of things -- having sex, doing drugs, being free -- that are far more enjoyably experienced by one's self as opposed to watching other people enjoy them on screen. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 4, 2012
Stewart, selected for Marylou five years ago on the basis of her striking debut in "Into the Wild," is perfect in the role, takes off her clothes more than once and nearly always seems to be breaking a sweat, which kicks the sexiness quotient up high. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMar 21, 2013
Even if Salles' film can't possibly capture the impact of its source, it's intriguing enough to rate a place in the ever-expanding mythology of "the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live." Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJan 2, 2013
What Salles doesn't conjure is the rapture of Kerouac's bohemian romanticism. Without it, On the Road is a remote experience, all reason and no rhyme. Read full review
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