Written and directed by Ani Simon-Kennedy
Starring Sabrina Carpenter, Maggie Siff, Danny Trejo and Steven Ogg
Running time: 1 hour and 30 minutes

by Melissa Strong

The Short History of the Long Road is a coming-of-age story with elements we need more of: female protagonist (check) who doesn’t chase a boy (check plus), experience unplanned pregnancy and/or sexual assault (check plus plus) or find herself victimized, exploited or violently harmed (noyce!). Writer/director/producer Ani Simon-Kennedy also is female. Next time, and the time after that, I would love to see a story like this with a protagonist who is a young person of color and/or queer and/or trans and/or disabled and/or in the foster system and/or… I could go on, but surely you get the picture. Nevertheless, I quickly became biased in favor of Nola (Sabrina Carpenter) and this movie about her maturation. 

However, a more fitting title might be The Long History of the Short Road. That’s because Nola’s story is like a rumspringa in reverse. Consider the most-common way kids rebel against their parents. Do the opposite of what your parents do. Embrace what they hate, or pretend to embrace it. If they’re religious, refuse to worship. If they’re meat eaters, become a vegetarian. If they’re vegetarian, eat cheeseburgers. If they play guitars, play golf. But Nola lives on the road in a refurbished RV with her father Clint (Steven Ogg, channeling Jack Nicholson as Captain Fantastic), without a permanent home and the roots and responsibilities that go with it. How can she rebel, when her father already has chosen for her a life that rejects convention and expectation as well as responsibility and human connection? 

Yup, you guessed it: Nola longs for the seemingly trivial experiences of regular, square life. Clint is so restless that he can’t sit through a movie (check minus) -- he would rather see what’s on the screen in the theater next door. This is what breaks Nola: wanting to see how a movie ends. For me, it would have been the steady diet of gas-station hot dogs. But Nola is more principled than I, and also more perceptive and articulate than I was at her age -- which is 14? 16? 18? unclear -- and I was pretty perceptive and articulate at those ages, if also locked in a prison of self-loathing. Then again, an adult wrote Nola’s dialogue. She complains to Clint, “I’m always on your time.” Nola wants the freedom to make her own decisions, instead of living the life that Clint chose.

For all his rejection of normie ways, Clint responds to Nola’s outburst the way most parents do: he attempts to distract and placate his child with promises of a trip to the place she has always wanted to visit, her namesake city of New Orleans. It doesn’t work, for a number of reasons. Nola sees through her father, who has made this promise before. And she won’t be distracted from her rebellion, which is not superficial; she desires autonomy, not attention, parental irritation, or a way to distinguish herself. Then tragedy strikes to prevent father and daughter from making the trip.

I won’t reveal the tragedy, but the synopsis for The Long History of the Short Road calls it “a shocking rupture,” which led me to expect that Clint would take off in the RV and abandon his daughter (maybe I’m projecting..?). That isn’t what happens, although it kind of is. What follows is that reverse rumspringa in which Nola tries on different ways of living now that she’s not on Clint’s time: she stays in place instead of constantly moving, she goes to a church supper, she gets a job, she makes friends. One is her likeably hammy boss, Miguel (Danny Trejo). I wondered why Trejo played the character that way until I realized Miguel would be creepy AF if it wasn’t abundantly clear he neither wants to get in Nola’s pants nor replace her dad. Cheryl (Maggie Siff) can’t do that either, though she shares a few powerful scenes with her daughter in which Nola begins to take possession of herself in ways she couldn’t while living with Clint. 

So, like, Sabrina Carpenter is waaaaaaaaay too beautiful to look like she lives in an RV and eats only hot dogs. An artist of considerable skill took care to make Carpenter’s hair appear slept-in and unclean, but her bedhead is so obviously crafted. At least Carpenter looks young and wears overalls. More important, she can act. Carpenter carries the movie, often appearing alone and acting without dialogue. She portrays Nola’s feelings in such a lifelike way that I didn’t fully appreciate Carpenter’s skill until her scenes with another gorgeous young actor. Jashaun St. John exercises restraint in her portrayal of Blue, a Native girl who also seeks liberation from her father. But where St. John’s acting hints at things unsaid, Carpenter’s wordlessly conveys the multitudes Nola contains, from her delight at participating in a family dinner to her acceptance of herself and the life she chooses.

Still, Blue may have the best line of The Short History of the Long Road. She tells Nola that people can have biological families, as well as logical families. Together, Blue and Nola, and Miguel too, form a kind of logical family for themselves, on their own terms. Nola may be the opposite of Chris McCandless, who went Into the Wild (2007) in a tighter, far more powerful, and more fully realized movie. But her choices seem more sustainable: surrounded by people as well as the expansive beauty and freedom of nature, Nola has the best of both worlds.

Available on demand today, find more information on how to watch here.