Big Sur

R

Released Nov 1, 2013

1 hr. 40 min.

Drama

List

44%

25 Reviews

Tomatometer

37%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Jack Duluoz takes three trips to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin in Big Sur.

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l g

was not aware of this one. found it on Prime. was really enjoying this - a pleasant surprise - until the last 10 or 15 minutes. i got lost there at the end.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I've watched this several times and found it exceptional and almost never watch movies. I'm a huge Kerouac fan and have read him for years and years . he's had a most profound affect on my life. I live through him and neal doing things I never would. the casting is outstanding and the movie is a work of art but of course most people have absolutely no sense of that. they are blind. art is not subjective. people's tastes are. this movie is based on Kerouac's last great book. he had a nervous breakdown and at the same time the book is laced with humor. the movie is very well made. the makers did an outstanding job, as good as can be done when making a book into a movie.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Feels like a really long commercial for a movie. Or a really long short film. While I admire the filmmaking craft on display here, movies are not books, and this felt more like a book than a movie. The monotone voiceover feels inspired by Terrence Malick, but it doesn't have the same poetic emotion. It just becomes verbal diarrhea at times, increasingly so by the 1 hour mark. Gorgeous cinematography, but the whole thing feels a bit surreal.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/28/23

Full Review

Serge L

The film is organized like a book. Jack Kerouac, now a beatnick hero after On the road, is fed up and go to California, and narrates the film. This may be based on Jack's writing but it pokes holes at the icon. Certainly Kerouac wanted to deflate his own icon, but the film starts like Mad men to only placate Kerouac to a cardboard character on the ground. Okay, we get his sense of adventure and the sudden freedom of the time. But we don't get his jadedness and his panic attacks. We don't understand his drive to get drunk. Was he just a spineless animal, not understanding people, nor himself? Was he an homer-sexual unknown to himself? The film itself seems to disconnect to reality and his subject, midway. It's like a rocket to the moon that despises itself because everyone keeps cheering for it after it's back. Still two stars for some recreation of the period and the two fabulously good looking girls. Otherwise, a spanking for subject spoilage.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

12/22/15

Full Review

Audience Member

The film is organized like a book. Jack Kerouac, now a beatnick hero after On the road, is fed up and go to California, and narrates the film. This may be based on Jack's writing but it pokes holes at the icon. Certainly Kerouac wanted to deflate his own icon, but the film starts like Mad men to only placate Kerouac to a cardboard character on the ground. Okay, we get his sense of adventure and the sudden freedom of the time. But we don't get his jadedness and his panic attacks. We don't understand his drive to get drunk. Was he just a spineless animal, not understanding people, nor himself? Was he an homer-sexual unknown to himself? The film itself seems to disconnect to reality and his subject, midway. It's like a rocket to the moon that despises itself because everyone keeps cheering for it after it's back. Still two stars for some recreation of the period and the two fabulously good looking girls. Otherwise, a spanking for subject spoilage.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/20/23

Full Review

Audience Member

It doesn't work, but Jean-Marc Barr gives a compelling performance as Kerouac.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

Full Review

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Michael Polish

Director

Stana Katic

Lenora

Radha Mitchell

Carolyn Cassady

Josh Lucas

Neal Cassady

Kate Bosworth

Billie

Henry Thomas

Philip Whalen

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Roxana Hadadi

Punch Drunk Critics

Ultimately, Big Sur demonstrates the limitations of Kerouac's text, how personal it is to each reader and how unsatisfactory it feels on the big screen.

Rated: 1.5/5

Jan 9, 2017

Full Review

Sheila O'Malley

RogerEbert.com

A strangely tepid experience for such searing psychological material.

Rated: 2/4

Nov 1, 2013

Full Review

Robert Abele

Los Angeles Times

There's a strange heft to its hollowness.

Oct 31, 2013

Full Review

B. Ruby Rich

Film Quarterly

Sparked an awareness of drama and documentary's interconnectedness and the impossibility of truly separating their elements in a digital age.

Feb 28, 2020

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Big Sur is a picturesque film to behold, but if you close your eyes, it sounds like an audio book.

Aug 29, 2019

Full Review

Josh Terry

Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

The film is driven by narration taken from passages of Kerouac's own prose, which celebrate the enthusiasm and passion he holds for life while his addictions eat away at his body and mind.

Nov 29, 2017

Full Review

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Synopsis

Jack Duluoz takes three trips to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin in Big Sur.

Director: Michael Polish
Executive Producer: Donal Logue, Eddie Vaisman, Mark Roberts, Jim Sampas
Screenwriter: Michael Polish
Distributor: Ketchup Entertainment
Production Co: 3311 Productions, Troy Entertainment
Rating: R (Some Sexuality|Nudity|Language)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 1, 2013, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 25, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $33.6K

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