BRIGHT ANGEL (1990)

You would think that as a sheltered eighteen year old you couldn't do much worse than living in a go-nowhere town in Montana.  Just at the moment you always imagined your life would start, you realize that there are really no opportunities to move on...or change...or grow up. George (Dermot Mulroney) has this revelation in Bright Angel, but his journey out into the wide world proves that things aren't necessarily better elsewhere.

 

Though George has finished school and technically reached adulthood, it's clear that there's little to distinguish his current life from childhood.  His mother (Valerie Perrine) has run off with another man yet again, and George and his father (Sam Shepard) are left to fend for themselves.  It wouldn't be too bad if they actually lived as equals, but George's well-intended but overbearing dad can be found physically helping George to wash his hands for dinner.  There's really no way to be a grown up in a house like that.  It makes sense, then, that George is more than willing to drive a girl he barely knows all the way to Wyoming to get her brother out of jail. 

 

Indeed, Lucy (Lili Taylor) is more interesting than just about anyone George has ever met.    She's worldly and perceptive and she challenges him constantly, but she doesn't dismiss him the way most people do.  At the same time, there's no real spark between them, making their journey an entity unto itself.  It's a strange, ultimately tragic adventure, but no real meaning can be gleaned from the bizarre events that unfold.  George may have escaped the limitations of home, but there's little to suggest that the next chapter of his life will offer him anything more.  

 

With a lively cast of characters that also includes Benjamin Bratt, Mary Kay Place, Delroy Lindo, Bill Pullman, Burt Young, and Sheila McCarthy, Bright Angel isn't necessarily a dull viewing experience.  There's a decided sleepiness to the film, but it's punctuated by enough random action to keep the audience engaged.  Unfortunately, George doesn't have much of a character arc and the plot doesn't...how shall we say this?  Go anywhere?  The movie is little more than a bunch of things that happen, making Bright Angel less than profound.