“… no one can never see past the choice they don’t understand… ”
The Oracle, The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Loop films are, by their nature, a sci-fi fantasy tool utilized to get a protagonist to confront some aspect of themselves. It rarely matters the cause of looping as that’s just a manifestation of something going on internally within the character; rather, the looping is an opportunity for introspection and exploration. We see this with recent rom-com River (2023), horror 6:45 (2022), comedy Palm Springs (2020), and, of course, Groundhog Day (1993). In each, the protagonist is typically avoiding something and the experience of reliving the loop forces them into a confrontation of self that would otherwise go ignored. This is no different in the directorial debut of Shannon Triplett, making the shift from VFX and producing into writer/director, with her SXSW 2024 world premiere of Desert Road. Don’t mistake thinking that just because you understand the framework that you can predict the execution as Desert Road is far more of a character piece wherein real tensions and personal struggles pave the way for the mysterious challenges set before the protagonist. With this in mind, Triplett’s Desert Road is at once an edge-of-your-seat thriller whose use of isolation and repetition unsettles, giving way to the kind of birth/rebirth that’s powerfully life-affirming.
While driving from Los Angeles, California, to her hometown in Iowa, a woman (Kristine Froseth) gets into a car accident which requires a tow truck to fully remedy. While waiting for the truck to arrive, she goes wondering around with her photo camera, killing time by investigating the nearby factory and various hills in the area. At first, there’s nothing extraordinary about her exploration until she realizes that everywhere she goes leads back to the same stretch of road around the site of the accident, the gas station she stopped at just prior, and the factory. Unable to reach the nearby highway, trapped in this one space, she begins to worry if anything she’s experiencing is real, even her own existence.
Because of the nature of the film, what follows hews even closer to our usual “no spoilers” than normal.
The woman (Kristine Froseth) looks out across the vast desert before her, with no hope in sight in DESERT ROAD. Photo Credit: Nico Navia. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Just because someone has experience behind the scenes on a film, in this case either producing (Godzilla (2014)) or working on the VFX team (Fast Five (2011); Battleship (2012)), doesn’t necessarily mean that their experience prepares them for taking on their own feature, but Desert Road makes it clear that Triplett is a talent to pay attention to. Starting with the script, Triplett grounds the film in realistic tension and the disquiet of a young woman traveling solo. This can look like not giving up too much information to a male stranger giving off creepy vibes, offering lies to create an illusion of safety, and generally keeping to one’s self. Whereas the aforementioned films have small casts, they are typically part of a larger ensemble and that doesn’t describe Desert Road at all; it’s primarily Froseth’s (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) woman we follow and she only engages with five other actors throughout the runtime and, at most, only two at once. This inserts a sense of dread well before the accident that strands her takes place, utilizing that prepared tension to catapult things further once her only means of conveyance is removed. It’s not that the car is totaled so much as what it comes to represent as a means of transport, a carriage of safety that brings her from one place to another now turned into little more than a giant paperweight due to its immobility. Adding to the significance of both of these things, Triplett smoothly offers up informative exposition via a brief phone conversation between Froseth’s character and her mother (voiced by Rachel Dratch (Harley Quinn)), thereby explaining her ability to change her own tire (combating the misogynistic belief that women can’t do that) while also setting up the character’s inner conflict when the idea of her being “partnered” with someone will fix her problems comes up. This conversation helps to clarify that the woman was raised to be capable, yet is encouraged to not be alone (the mother starting to delineate the difference between coupling and partnership before the call ends). Without delving into spoiler territory, all of the above creates an environment built from internal and environmental factors that put the woman at a disadvantage in her situation, requiring her to use all she has to overcome it … if she can.
Loops are, by their nature, cyclical. So when they are used in films, we know that the character is going to be repeatedly bludgeoned with something until they get the point. Sometimes it has to be pointed out to them, sometimes they have to figure it out on their own, but the loop is a physical manifestation of the character’s own weakness. Sure, they get explained as being created by external sources in some of the examples provided before, however, what they come to represent still holds true. This is very true here, as well, except, instead of forcing the audience to experience the same day over and over, what Triplett’s devised is an endless loop of a different sort, one which forces Froseth’s character to stop seeing herself as less-than, as unable, and as someone whose worth is only defined by what she can make of herself versus someone who is worthy simply by existing. That’s the challenge presented, which takes the loop and almost makes it more of a lesson on character, discipline, and faith in oneself rather than the kind of narrative audiences usually receive. What can be discussed is how this sandbox, an easier term to use, represents the woman’s reluctance, thereby forcing her to return to the same place no matter which direction she moves. This is, on its face, simplistic, trapping the woman in a single moment, except it’s more complex than that, with time passing in a specific way that seems entirely chaotic and disturbing, feeding the tension established by internal/environmental causes, which then, through experimentation and intention, reveal themselves to be something else. How so like our own lives, wherein our reluctance can force us to be trapped by our own inaction or inability to see past the choices we don’t understand yet. If we could understand our choices, understand the implications, then we, like the woman, could freely pass from this loop into the rest of our lives. All of this is aided by directorial and cinematography choices which frequently ensure that Froseth’s woman is isolated within the frame, her disquiet the thing we focus on, the positioning of what we see and don’t impactful into how we, ourselves, respond or react to any situation we observe. None of this is executed thoughtlessly and all of this is intentional, and it beautifully helps the performance build to an exquisite ending.
Writer/director Shannon Triplett. Photo Credit: G. James. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Desert Road is a surprising and unexpected rich text of a film that lulls you in thinking it’s going to be a standard loop thriller and then surprises you with its humanity. Much of this is due to Froseth, whose performance remains grounded despite the unnatural events her character experiences. Going back to that groundwork from Triplett, we learn enough to understand how the woman was raised, so that the ways in which she interrogates each problem makes sense, and it’s Froseth who infuses it all with believability. Froseth is what makes any sense of anxiety hair-raising, any foreboding carrying of weight, and any relief feeling like a shared joy. Though there are moments in the script that are predictable, thereby setting an expectation for how the narrative will ebb, flow, and arc, the execution is far from it, guided by Triplett and performed by Froseth, Desert Road becomes a lesson in being our own worst enemy and the legacy we leave behind with our choices. Not all of which belong to ourselves.
Go in as unaware as you can, if you can.
Screening during SXSW 2024.
For more information, head to the official SXSW Desert Road webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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