Maggie. She’s the one. In Portland. She’s the reason for the movie. In story terms, she’s the MacGuffin. Because now we have an excuse for keeping our butts in the seats, even if the ending is already a foregone conclusion. However, this woman in Portland pretty much evaporates. Sure, we get to see her on multiple occasions, but she’s mostly a distant idea — a fantastical figment of male imagination. This could spawn a whole essay on its own. Full stop.
Because this movie is actually a pretense to take to the road, explore a male friendship, and with it, romantic dreams sculpted by life and time. I usually enjoy films that work in extended metaphors or similar motifs because they allow us to resonate with stories on multiple levels.
The problem is when they just don’t work on a specific, personal level where those elements feel superficial or at least negligible. In this particular instance, it’s not that the core relationships are altogether tacky, but they feel especially hackneyed. Pilgrim’s Progress, The Odyssey, these are stories about the road — the journey — casting a metaphor for the trials and tribulations of life. But they work on another level. She’s in Portland is nothing like them. Let us leave it at that and take it for what it is.
The Beginning
We actually start with Wes (Tommy Dewey), a pretty face in a corporate job. We’ve come a long way from Autumn in (500) Days of Summer as Minka Kelly plays his clingy wife who inadvertently suffocates him with her grocery lists and familial obligations. His relations seem even comically out of touch with his annoyances.
Later, when they convene for their obligatory class reunion, a fellow alum notes they always had a Ken and Barbie thing going on. It’s the first overt moment of lampshading in the script, highlighting our current leading couple for what they are. As the story progresses, Kelly has a thankless job with her whole performance literally phoned, miles away from her husband.
Because Wes has an instantaneous lightbulb of an idea that carries him away. They’ve sighted the same Maggie Olson (Nicole LaLiberte) — the woman who once was madly in love with his best friend Luke (Francois Arnaud). Luke hasn’t been picking up his calls nor did he attend the reunion. So our escape from middle-class corporate malaise has begun. He’s going to L.A. to forcibly press gang his buddy up to Portland. When he’s sitting at his desk literally clicking through Facebook and Wikipedia, creating their itinerary, my insides wanted to crawl, but it’s just the beginning.
It’s convenient enough to label their escapade a frat boy road trip. It begins with the L.A. bar scenes with a former conquest hanging over Luke in a manner that feels strangely uncomfortable and like a relic from 15 years ago. The next morning, a different drunk girl, brought in from the streets, berates Luke calling him a complete and utter cliche; he’s a 30-something dreamer and a loser! There’s the logline rolled up nice and neat without dwelling on it too long. Still, we must continue north.
By this point, it feels like you could slip any two guys into the lead roles, and I’m not sure if that’s a criticism of the script or the actors meant to fill the shoes. The imagery on PCH is an instant highlight because the contours feel one-of-a-kind and something the movie can offer on a truly visual scale. Still, there’s this uneasy sense this might be more of a travelogue or a glorified car commercial. All we need is some Lord Huron pathfinder music.
Even as this phase of the story continues, and they make their way up the coast, the photography is not just picture-perfect; it’s lush to a kind of distilled, unimaginable extreme. I’ve driven those same roads, and they’re raw and majestic, but I’ve never seen them through a filter like this.
IV and Beyond
Fittingly, UCSB gets a prominent cameo made for protagonists such as these. True to form, they instigate creepy interactions where every encounter with the opposite sex looks destined to be a pickup line. Even these sun-soaked, dubstep-ready moments in Isla Vista, take on a more tragic meaning when you think about the young man who targeted one of the sorority houses in an attack because he felt denigrated.
I’ve been to IV; I’ve had friends who went and lived in SB. There is a pervasive beach & party culture there, but there’s also something more the movie never quite digs into, beyond the altogether superficial vibes. What’s most regrettable is how our main characters are allowed to be tolerably scummy in a way projected as sweet and somehow endearing. Even as pointing out cliches doesn’t make them okay — the same goes for being a “sexist pig” as Wes admits to.
They part ways with their collegiate acquaintances only to strike up a conversation some new friends at a winery (also of the opposite gender). If the journey felt surface-level before, She’s in Portland strives for unfathomable depth through long drawn out musings on love and romance: marriage as myth and love as fairy tale. They believe in building up enough little moments to get you through a life of pettiness, finding the “why” of it all — opening up your heart to the possibility of something. In other words, this film stretches out its arms wide in the pursuit of romantic fantasy.
Every subsequent stop on the road either has female companions to be flirted with or mined for pearls of wisdom. Though the interactions play out in reality, they feel fabricated and staged like a glorified, objectified, trumped-up accentuation of life.
Conclusion: She’s in Portland
One of the moments that feels even momentarily raw in a kind of heartbreaking way is the dismantling of an affair that looked destined for something more. In in this regard, She’s in Portland is late to the party picking up on themes The Bigamist handled more sensitively almost 70 years prior.
Friendship was one of the other few elements I could latch onto in the movie — this idea of holding onto a friendship from college as life moves on. Luke admits to Wes, “I’m supposed to have all the answers. You’re the one guy who knows I don’t.” It says it all in a nutshell. That’s why Luke was hesitant to reach out to his buddy.
The difference is I would call my best friend. Because even though we’re younger, it certainly feels like we’ve experienced more than these characters ever did together. Our conversations feel deeper, our joint experiences were more formative, and our journeys together more impactful.
Mind you, I don’t think this is bragging. I think it’s indicative of how deep a bond of friendship can be in real life if given a chance. Granted, it’s only a movie, but She’s in Portland feels like a pale imitation with pretty faces, luscious but often empty panoramas, and stakes that never realize what the depths of friendship really mean. In other words, it doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing.
Still, for all its faults, She’s in Portland makes me want to take another road trip. To my friends, that is. And we had some great ones up the California coast. Now we’re all spread out. These are friends in San Diego, friends in the Bay, friends in Seattle. Friends in the Midwest. Friends on the East Coast. They know who they are. And more importantly, they know who I am better than anyone else. What’s more, it doesn’t take a manic pixie dream girl to bring us together.
What are examples of great road movies that utilize their locations well? Please tell us in the comments below!
She’s In Portland premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on January 16th, 2020. It is yet to be released.
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