Rocky Road (2014)

It is a performances centric movie

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

This cute little movie about a Wall Street big shot who is laid off goes back to his Podunk home town and reconnects with his small down girl friend. His father's ice cream business is struggling. There is some cute dialog and it's pleasant enough a movie. Mark Salling of Glee surprisingly looks the part of the uptight finance guy. Rebecca Dalton plays the love interest.The message these days is it's good to trade Wall Street for Main Street. It may be sweet and romantic but have to wonder if it's the most practical message to be sending in all these movies. Maybe they need to make a movie about how there would be no Main Street without Wall Street.

Harrison Burke is a Wall Street hotshot who has been downsized and returns to his hometown with his tail between his legs. After all he failed to accumulate much in terms of savings and even a roof over his head during the good years.Harrison has to endure humiliation from the locals and his parents want him to find himself. His old girlfriend is now going out with a rich lawyer who wants to take her away to Dallas and Harrison decides to get on with the family ice cream business and turn it around by introducing a wider range of offerings.This is one of these made for cable television films that seems to be squarely aimed at a female audience. Mark Salling from Glee tries his best to infuse the bland script with some characterisation. He is helped by Nicholas Campbell who plays his dad but my word that small town of his are full of unlikeable people. Even the local priest humiliates Harrison from the pulpit and it seems trying to better yourself is wrong. You also wonder what type of parents would not even open your son's gifts.You kind of guess in this type of film that Harrison realises the error of his ways, learns the importance of family and rallying around the ice cream business. That is only because the script has little of substance as if it wants to go for a happy ending hence why the whole town suddenly turns up on the open day despite the poster with the messed up date.

It is impossible to like any of these characters. Harrison is a grown child, but has a good business sense. His parents and friends seem to love publicly humiliating him, mocking him and brushing off any of his ideas for their business which is going under to the point you can understand why he doesn't come home… I wouldn't want to spend time with these people either. Every gift that he has ever sent to his family was not only not used, but was put away in the garage unopened, still in the wrapping paper. I get that the moral to this movie is that family is important and you should support the people you love… but it missed the mark. Everyone is a huge jerk in their own right, cold and rude. This lasts until there is 10 minutes left in the movie and it's like everyone drinks the cool-aid and is looking for a group hug and songs around the campfire. The switch happens so quickly it can only be called creepy and clearly drug induced. Suzie, who is the love interest use to date Harrison and is now dating Rick. The two spend the whole movie fighting each other, trying to prove who is the better guy for Suzie… who is painfully obnoxious. At the end Rick and Harrison, despite spending their whole lives hating each other and Rick messing up a flyer that Harrison made to boost sales for the family company, decide to apologize to each other. They both want to be friends. Then Harrison wishes Suzie and Rick the best with their future. Suzie says she has changed her mind saying she wants to go back to Harrison, and Rick is completely fine with this. Ever wonder what it would look like if a schizophrenic wrote a movie?