Bicycle Lane

review by dave heaton

The film Bicycle Lane opens with the main character, Don, having a conversation with his car. He’s trying, unsuccessfully, to convince his car to start. But the thing is, he sounds almost more comfortable talking to the car than he does to most of the people he meets in the film, whether it’s a neighbor, a co-worker, his roommate, or multiple strangers that he encounters during the journey at the center of the film’s plot. Uncomfortable conversations are perfect comic material, especially when the actors carry a knowing sense of how people really act, and when the film tries to capture that relatively straight, as this one does.

The journey is a bike ride Don takes when his car won’t start. It’s a determined effort to reach a woman he has a crush on; in other words, the determined attempt of a misanthrope to connect with someone. A lovable misanthrope, and a funny one, but a misanthrope still. Towards the end of the movie he tells someone he chose a bike over taking the bus because it would be fun to see Los Angeles from a different perspective, but even at that point it seems like a lie, overshadowed by his earlier reason: “I hate people”. The journey in the end seems driven by that hatred but also a move, conscious or not, to overcome it.

Of course, much of the comedy in the film comes from the people he encounters being strange, being jerks, or at least butting into his personal space in ways Don’s not ready for. Which is what makes each step a struggle of sorts, and a move towards human connection. A man riding a bike across Los Angeles, such a notorious car city, at the same time presents a great cinematic image, especially when the bike and the person are distinctive-looking. It’s an image that lingers in the brain after Bicycle Lane has ended, along with the ultimate tenderness of the film, its humor and its main character.

{www.myspace.com/bicyclelane}