You Can Adopt a Highway but You Can’t Go Home Again

Much of the critical praise for Adopt a Highway will understandably go to Ethan Hawke, who once again gives a delightful performance as Russell Millings, an ex-con who is thrust into the modern world after having spent twenty years in prison. Hawke portrays a man who seems not just socially stunted, but even somewhat limited in his intelligence with the kind of sweetness that could have easily turned to treacly. It doesn’t largely because of the script and direction, both handled by first time writer/director Logan Marshall-Green.

Some might know Marshall-Green from his acting roles in such films as Alien: Covenant or Spiderman: Homecoming, but if this first effort as writer/director is any indictator his career as a filmmaker should be one to watch. Adopt a Highway opens with what sounds like a politician announcing the passage of three-strikes law (which adds a significant amount of time in prison for a felon who’s been incarcerated twice before) to thunderous applause. This blends into a barrage of sounds as we see Russel in prison looking over newspaper articles that chronicled his demise for the distrubution of marijuana.

Marshall-Green wants us from the get-go to get that Russell really didn’t deserve to spend as much time in prison before we learn he is looking at these articles because he is packing them up in preparation of his release from prison. Marshall-Green’s use of sound will remain a constant technique to establish state of mind, as it does when Russell once leaving prison is next seen washing dishes and told to clock out so as not to run up overtime. From here Russell waits for a bus as the soundtrack plays a soulful bluegrass, and while he boards and rides the bus up until he enters his motel room and shuts the door, shutting the soundtrack outside and out of earshot.

These flourishes help elevate a film that gradually meanders into Russell finding a newborn baby in the dumpster of the fast food joint he washes dishes for. He takes the baby back to his hotel and discovers a note in the bag she came in informing Russell the baby’s name is Ella. Tenderness ensues as Russell attempts to care for the abandoned child. It appears as if this will be the story, of a slow witted ex-con raising an adorable little girl, but Marshall-Green’s script makes clear early on that nothing is as it seems.

When Russell take the baby back to the motel room one of the first things he does is call 911 to report the abandoned child, but as Ella mews in the background, he changes his mind. Of course, baby’s need more than just a dimwitted paternal figure, they need to eat. Russell’s answer for this is to feed her condiment packages and give her creamers in an attempt to satiate her. Then a knock at the door reveals two police officers who’ve come to check on the 911 call made and then disconnected. They hear Ella crying in the background and ask Russell pertinent questions regarding her.

Russell agrees that he’s her father and this seems to be the end of the conversation between he and the police and he starts to shut the door only to have the sterner looking of the two police officers jam the door. Russell is clearly frightened, but the cop only wanted to tell him that if he rubs the child’s belly this will help. Then he smiles and they leave and nothing is as it seems. We see Russell at the store trying to figure out what kind of baby formula to buy and we are lulled into a belief this will be the story of his redemption.

He takes her to the beach and they share moments of sublime beauty but once back at the motel and in a brief moment of inattendence by Russell, Ella falls off the bed, reality hits him hard. Hard enough it forces him to take her to the emergency room where, of course, he is unburdened by this joyous child he didn’t seem to think was a burden at all. Hawke has a terrific moment when he breaks down a cries as they explain to him that he can’t keep the child, of which he knows. The follow up interview with government officials winds up at his job which leads to him getting fired.

Suddenly the film lurches into a road film as Russell takes a bus to return home and see his father. As it often is with actors who turn to screenwriting, Marshall-Green doesn’t weave much of a story and instead focuses on a “character study,” which can too often be too meandering and only highlight the importance of plot, but the writer/director is blessed with the gifts of Ethan Hawke and as a writer he allows the exposition to come out sparingly and organically allowing his audience to know the very least that needs to be known in order to understand this journey.

Is it journey worth taking for the audience? I think it is even if the film has its flaws. Journeys are messy and Russel’s journey is a wistful, and the films unwillingness to offer up sappy happy endings and instead offer hope makes it all worth the while.