Detour

Nestled in an imaginative enclave, precociously performing with enigmatic adrenaline, an artistic couple contemplates progression, alternative gigs, perhaps a move. 

The piano player entertains wedlock and dreams of resonant conjugal consummation, but the singer sets her sights on Hollywood and soon she's hit the road for L.A.

Inclined to romantically subsist on un/conscious conceptions of loyalty and devotion, her distraught beau haplessly hangs on until his presence is one day requested.

But he can't afford a bus ticket so it's time to hitchhike west, a crash course in random interpersonal attentive discourse phased ensuing.

But one of his jaded interlocutors passes away in the forlorn night, and Mr. Roberts (Tom Neal) doesn't know what to do, so he ditches the body, and keeps on drivin'.

He makes it through a routine scan before patiently stopping to shyly gas up, when he notices a wayward belle seeking passage off to the side (Ann Savage as Vera).

Their discussions are initially glib before she ferociously lays it on 'im, she's had a ride in this car before only with a different lonesome driver.

He emphatically insists that he is not a murderous criminal, yet she isn't the trusting kind, even if she doesn't fear for her life.

She's more interested in selling the car and using the money to go shopping, again, and won't let Mr. Roberts slip away or disappear without dire reckoning.

He's as unlucky as they come, prone to grand idealistic reveries, on his own without a network or an institution to back him up.

She swoops in on his fecund fervour and has soon assumed imperial prominence, the two forging an antithetical derelict dismal gender bias.

His hopes to one day wed and settle down and banally intrigue, mutated into anxious suspicions hysterically clad in verbose irritability. 

If looking for rarefied woe lugubriously distilled through befuddled dis/enchantment,  Detour strays from the master narrative to embalm disgruntled folds.

No chummy freewheeling joyrides or clever concise improvised amelioration, just a steady increasingly angst ridden rollout despondently trekked and touring. 

Not sure if you're really that into old school woebegone film noir, but Detour's a crushing exemplar of the disputed genre's disillusioned tropes.

A good book, canned soup, a recital, a walk through the park, a beanbag chair.

Detour revels in maligned microcosm.

Misguided mischief.

Visceral atrophy.

*I don't mean to be so glum, I just like film noir. And Dostoevsky. But I'm also loving Dickens more and more these days. Plus, Biden's administration seems tip top, and mass vaccinations are on the way. It's still the month of February, but positive things are on the horizon.