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The movie starts off profiling two people in a tailspin, the attractive Claire who on paper has it well with a nice position in a firm and a high profile husband and Thom, who goes early on in the movie by the name Dan Reeves as an alias, as a photographer, who is struggling to sell his latest works and is about to be evicted by an unsympathetic landlord. But he does some cab work on the side and has a yellow cab but there is a twist even to that as we later find out. Claire’s co worker is a little younger and has a more startling view of what she is learning and what she might want in the key area of relationships, and her ability to meander and explore has Claire even more in a tizzy as to her straight line to success not quite lining up how she hoped. Claire gets news of her father being gravely ill in California and finds her husband back at the house working a little bit too closely with the attractive secretary, a scene from which she suspects an affair and all this is a bit much to handle and she hails a cab who happens to be driven by Dan and asks him to just drive as she is carrying a load of cash and can afford any distance on the fare. Her husband's voice is suddenly becoming part of the clamor that has a crescendo in not the best way for Claire and she is off to the races with this cab driver who at first she hardly even notices as she is so perturbed and upset by the crumble she may in reality be experiencing. As they head deep into PA through the overnight, she calms down slightly and the idea comes about to have him drive the cab cross country for a sum of 5,000 dollars as she needs to get to see her father there as soon as possible and is afraid of flying. It is slowly emerging that in some ways, Dan is an antithesis to her troubles, although her actual interest in anything about him is more in the category of a glance. But neither Dan, nor Clair, have their best foot forward in the slightest and beyond that the glitches they encounter on the trip give a kind of naked exposure not physically but of their personalities to each other. What ensues is a road trip with a mix of pitfalls but also with some good scenic spots weaved in such as the Grand Canyon and some middle of nowhere arrivals with a mix of small town humor. What this movie really contrasts well is the expectations that go along the lines of have to verses what really is. While Claire does have all the decorations in her life done well, what is the underlying felt reality of this too her? Dan is hanging in there okay but with a bit of a cringe and a lack of surety as to his footing as to where, with what and with whom, and he is not in a good position to do any sort of hard sell. While Clair isn’t hostile towards Dan, she is standoffish and her flailing is more generally directed then towards him specifically, it is only just that he happens to be there. Dan, can really just be himself, sincere and due to continued setbacks a bit tepid and with that not trying to sell himself in any direct way to Claire who he knows is married and knows is having some personal turmoil where he is more so an observer who can just lend in a bit. While Dan could be considered attractive potentially, he certainly doesn't have the standard credentials as per some of the success models out there and he is a more so hiding in the bush as far as his intentions and goals.. But the scenery, the unusual circumstances, that can come about on a road trip like this, do begin to give Claire a new peek at the world from the perspective of the artist's eye, and maybe there is something else for her in this slightly new world vision that she hadn't considered for herself as a previously as a key and truly wanted accessory to her own personal journey,a journey now intertwined with the unwanted crossroads that she is now facing. In a sense, Dan and Claire are both in a runaway mode, but Claire might as she begins to hit the end of the road have a chance to find a new resilience and new inner resources that might help her meet the world in new middle ground and the same goes for Dan as per his alias or Thom, his real name. Two semi lost souls, get a bird's eye view at each other on some correspondingly lost trails, the result of which you have to see the movie to find out.
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