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Rating: Alan is a student at the University of Maine. Like most of them between '68 and '70, he too spends his time between studying, girls, smoking with friends, and military deferral for study reasons, avoiding Vietnam. One afternoon, like many others, he receives a phone call: it’s his neighbor, who tells him that his mother has had a stroke. Alan decides to leave that same evening to reach the hospital as soon as possible, and not having means of transport, he relies on hitchhiking, although there are many kilometers and the day is almost at an end.
His journey will be brightened first by a freak and then by an incontinent old man, and then continue partly on foot. The whole experience is full of hallucinations, a result of the psychological condition related to the anxiety of being quick, and the atmosphere of the long deserted and dark road lined with woods. Everything seems almost normal until he gets a third ride, the one of salvation, the one that would take him to his destination, saving him from darkness and desolation, and perhaps(?) even from madness: that of a dead man driving a 58 Plymouth Fury!
The journey with the new driver starts well, but right from the start, there is something amiss, even Alan’s consciousness feels uneasy. The death runs fast, at this point Alan is forced to choose, and quickly: "you or your mother, tell me who I must take with me tonight". Amidst thousands of thoughts, regrets, and hallucinations, in a painful way, Alan chooses his mother... Suddenly waking up from this nightmare (which in fact was not a nightmare) feeling partly relieved but largely guilty for his (mean) final choice.
Finally arriving at the hospital, he is sure to find his mother dead, but instead, life (or death?) had given him a few more years, making Alan believe that everything was a figment of his imagination or that blow he took behind the neck at the cemetery, during his stop on the road. In the following years, Alan finished his university studies and continued to live with his mother quietly, until inevitably, on a serene evening like many others, she died.
The idea of this film, based on a story by SK, is simple in its intention because it reminds us (using the writer's metaphor) that we are all in line to ride the bullet (*), and sooner or later your turn comes. Unfortunately, even this as a cinematic test doesn’t amount to much, because in many moments it leans too much toward the ridiculous and even elicits some laughter, which wouldn’t be bad, but in another context. As long as it tells about Alan's university life, it might work, but when in the second part of the film, related to hitchhiking, a certain type of humor ruins the horror pathos that should instead pervade the story, as it happens, for example, when the dead driver explains who he really is.
In short, a good story, especially for its unexpected ending (even if its meaning is very simple), but the representation could have been rendered a bit more serious and dramatic, whereas instead, there are too many laughs due to the dialogues and the banality of the jokes, and too many details that, in my opinion, fall into the ridiculous.
If you have read the story (among other things, it is the first e-book ever published by King, experimentally a few years ago) and you know the author's explanation of where he found the inspiration, you will be deeply disappointed by this film. If instead, you have only seen the film, I am sure that you will not want to read the story, and I understand you...
(*) It is a ride similar to a roller coaster. Note how in the line of people there is no precise order regarding the age of those who are about to get on it. All in line waiting for their turn, more or less aware of what happens.
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