Hit The Road
An Iranian road trip comedy that is as funny as it is tense.
Mom (Pantea Panahiha), Dad (Mohammed Hassan Madjooni) and their two kids - the older brother (Amin Simiar) and the younger (Rayan Sarlak) - load into the car for a road trip to the Turkish border. Ostensibly, this is because the older brother has to depart for a time to get married in another country; or so the parents tell the youngest brother. As the group make their way, secrets out about the real peril the family is in, and tensions rise; all while the familiar family bickering, jokes, sing a longs and love fill this car.
Hit The Road is directed by Panah Pahani, whose father is Jafar Panahi - the famed Iranian director of such lauded films as The White Balloon, who has been imprisoned by Iran for his work. As such, it’s pretty brave for his young son to once again tempt that fate, telling a comedic story that is also grounded in the realities of living in that dictatorship. It’s also probably not surprising that this winds up being no simple road trip comedy.
The film comes to a somewhat gripping conclusion, and the tension around that certainly adds a different lens to the piece. But what is most to love about this movie are the small moments of familial bonding, joking, fighting and love throughout the journey.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with the family, whether it’s the mother lip syncing along to the radio, the surly older brother recounting his love of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or any of the innumerable moments from the younger boy. Indeed, Sarlak really is the standout performer here. It’s often tough to get a good performance out of child actors, and Sarlak’s role - as a youngster wreaking havoc on this family trip fraught with peril - could have been a major sticking point. But he is so incredibly charming, so reminiscent of all the young kids you’ve ever met, and ultimately so much the heart of this family, that it all somehow works.
Hit The Road isn’t the sort of movie that you can really sit back and turn your brain off (there’s too much at stake for that), but it does do a fantastic job of making the message come through in a packaging that feels fun, funny and upbeat. As they say, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.
