Despite a valiant aim, to raise awareness of the horrifying realities of child abuse, Alex Pettyfer’s directorial debut is unfortunately too brusquely paced and shallow to achieve anything substantial.
The actor has cast himself as the main character, the brooding Harley, scarred by his dysfunctional family in light of the tragedy, and prior trauma, that has come to define him. After his mother Bonnie (Juliette Lewis) is jailed for killing his abusive father, the bulk of the film sees Harley discover the truth of his devastating past through prison visits with his mother and sessions in a grey therapist’s office. The problem is that such delicate subject matter is verbalised with such a lack of subtlety that important matters become almost laughable. Beyond a handful of conversations which relay hidden histories and explain Harley’s impenetrable frostiness, it’s difficult to find a reason to invest emotionally in any part of his story.
Harley struggles with intimacy – his relationship with Amber (Nicola Peltz), the eldest of his three young sisters, is fraught, as she mocks him for not sleeping with women while she runs out into the night with guys Harley doesn’t know. Things develop as he starts having sex with older neighbour Callie (Jennifer Morrison). Their affair is not layered enough to be deemed a relationship; or at least, if it’s supposed to be, Pettyfer fails to add enough depth or detail to make that ring true — all Harley and Callie know about each other is that they both enjoy Impressionism. Add to this the fact that Pettyfer directs these scenes with an aggressive style, all curt body language and jerky camera movements, and it feels like this pair share no chemistry nor empathy whatsoever.
Dialogue is often derivative, as flimsy and melodramatic characters spout clichés instead of embodying any part of the devastating truths that define them. Suggestions of jealousy and fear aim to explain the tension in this family, but the convoluted string of answers can’t inject much credibility into Back Roads’ misguided story.