Mark Reviews Movies: THE ROAD TO GALENA

The Road to Galena, Vertical Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 7, 2022

Writer/director Joe Hall's The Road to Galena tells a familiar story, although with the typical goal and expectations reversed. We all know the usual tale of someone from a meager background, with dreams of much bigger and seemingly unlikely things, rising above real or perceived limitations to make those dreams a reality. Here, for example, we might expect that the protagonist, a young man from a small farming town in Maryland with parents who just make ends meet, might have ambitions of college, a financially lucrative job of some kind, and a prosperous life in the city.

That's what Cole Baird (Ben Winchell) does get—pretty quickly and easily too, given his circumstances—in this story, but he doesn't want more. He wants less.

This setup, then, is a bit of a stretch, and as a result, Hall has unintentionally made the drama and tension of his story more difficult, by intentionally twisting the goals of the main character and the narrative expectations of a rags-to-riches underdog tale. At multiple points in this story, there's nothing in Cole's life that serves as a convincing hindrance to his real ambitions.

Sure, his father is a bit of stickler for wanting his son to succeed as something more than a farmer in small town, but it's not really as if the father and son have the kind of relationship that would compel Cole to honor the old man's wishes. That has to happen, though, for any kind of conflict and obstacle to exist in Cole's journey—from where he is to remaining in that same place. The young man goes far over the course of a few decades, but his heart keeps calling him back home. Since none of the barriers in the way of that non-existent trek are really believable, we keep wondering why he simply doesn't answer that call.

After a brief and context-free flash-forward to a third-act tragedy (It's a transparent attempt to catch our attention immediately), we meet a teenage Cole (Winchell plays him from about 17 to just turning 40, and the performance and some subtle makeup do their jobs well enough in that regard). He is dating Elle (Aimee Teegarden), who just got a post-high school job as an assistant coach on the school's basketball team, and is best friends with Jack (Will Brittain), who comes from a long line of struggling farmers and wants to end that history of financial worry. Cole's father John (Jay O. Sanders) manages the local bank, and his mother Teresa (Jill Hennessy) is a housewife who, unlike her husband, understands her son's desire to become a farmer.

The father would rather Cole become a lawyer. Without much of a fight on either side of their relationship (Dad is quiet and passively controlling, and Cole just goes along), the son goes off to state school, does well, discovers that his girlfriend and best friend have started dating while he's away, and ends up at law school. There's some real disconnect in Hall's attempt to assert that a full ride to a prestigious law school is some kind of terrible fate, but then again, it has to be for the drama of Cole's life to function as drama. Whether we might believe it or not, of course, seems to have never crossed Hall's mind.

As for the rest of Cole's doomed life, he gets a job at a law firm and moves through the ranks. One imagines that his salary at such a place might enable him to save up and buy whatever land he wants one day—and soon. To counteract that obvious way back to comfortable simplicity, Hall introduces a new girlfriend and soon-to-be wife named Sarah (Alisa Allapach), whose entire existence in this story (She has no sense of a life or a personality outside of Cole's through line) seems to be to convince Cole to buy newer, bigger houses—just so he has no financial means to make his dream of a simpler life come true.

More complications—the law firm getting involved with a corporation buying up farmland in Cole's hometown—and tragedies—Cole's mother becomes ill and his lifelong friends, who put up with a lot of Cole's wishy-washy nature and weird resentment against them, struggle financially—ensue, of course. All of those problems, both big and small, in The Road to Galena feel more authentic and worth exploring than those of our protagonist, whose woeful, regretful attitude doesn't match just how damn lucky, whether he likes his fortune and fortunes or not, the guy is.

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