| A story about redemption, about making amends while still reaching for your dream, Soul’s Road is a simple, but lovely, movie featuring well-worn characters and some good music. It also happens to be a Canadian independent film and now is a great time to support the Canadian indie film industry. While the story does get very simple and the film can be unpolished at times, it’s still an easy movie to watch, to lose yourself for a couple hours. | | 2025
Directed by: Joel Stewart
Screenplay by: John K. MacDonald
Starring: Dallas Smith, Camille Stopps, Charlie Gillespie, Josh Collins
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Ronan Garrett (Dallas Smith) is a former rock star who made entertainment news headlines for being a bad boy a dozen too many times that eventually his tour just went on without him. The beginning of the movie is Ronan cleaning up his act; he got a haircut, took a bus back to his hometown, said sorry or tried to say sorry to some old friends, and then got a job.
Dallas Smith, the lead actor, is a current music star, so I don’t think he mirrors his character all that much apart from his musical ability. As a character, Ronan is quiet and remorseful, which he needs to be. He literally skipped out of town in the middle of night to make it big leaving his band mates and girlfriend behind without even saying goodbye. This backstory makes sense for the character in general, it doesn’t quite fit the Ronan we see now. He is 9 years older and a lot more mature, but he remains quiet and remorseful throughout the entire length of the movie. This is a one-note character acting-wise. But since Dallas Smith is better known for his music, it’s not too surprising that Ronan quickly finds his way back to music and Dallas Smith's voice gets to shine instead.
The film has some uneven pacing. It starts out at a nice, comfortably slow pace, since Ronan still has to meet many of his former friends and still make amends, and try to show that he’s a different person. And then, seemingly very suddenly, Ronan’s ready to re-form his old band. Eventually it’s clear why that happens as early as it does – because the film still needs time to expand the band and then form another musically-based story. There is also the occasional awkward edit which is noticeable but easy to ignore. And for an indie production, easy to overlook.
Ultimately Soul’s Road covers a simple, familiar path about a musician finding his way back home and then back to music. But it does so with some really lovely characters; there was a lot of thought put into who these people are that you can see that care and comfort level on the screen. There is also a lot of country-folk songs throughout, some original and some well-known.
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