The Map that Leads to You
Synopsis: A couple of 20-somethings meet on a train in Europe & end up traveling together. Love and complications follow.
The Map that Leads to You could be called Before Sunrise Lite. Before Sunrise (1995), the beloved Richard Linklater film, also starred a man and woman who meet on a train in Europe and fall for each other. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were stellar as a romantic American and practical Parisienne. TMTLMTU has Madelyn Cline and KJ Apa in the lead roles of 20-somethings who meet on a train.
First off, why are you Gen Z’ers wasting time and money on a train? A Eurail pass was the way to go thirty years ago, but now you can go faster and cheaper by air. But I get it, meeting on a plane isn’t romantic. Something about not being able leave your straitjacketed position in-seat. Along with the lack of landscape viewing that a train ride allows. And trains are the greener way to go, so good for you.
Recent college grad Heather first meets Jack on a train to Barcelona. He says ‘excuse me’ as he reaches her row of seats and climbs up onto the luggage rack to sleep. After a nap, he tries to make small talk with cute Texan Heather about the Hemingway book she’s reading. Reading a 21st century book by a Spaniard would be better, but okay, she’s traveling back into Hemingway’s plain prose and machismo.
Jack is a cute New Zealander who is traveling through Europe on his own. Heather is traveling with two women friends: Amy (Madison Thompson), a party girl and Connie (Sofia Wylie) who’s easy going. Heather is a planner with a personality that’s in between the two other characters. She’s a little wary of Jack’s curiosity.
At the train station in Barcelona, they part ways. Barcelona? Don’t they know that Barcelonians are fed up with tourists? With shiploads of tourists disembarking for the day and housing being bought up for vacationers, some residents have moved beyond protests to shooting foreigners with water guns. Rude, but at least they aren’t using real guns. Thankfully the actors are protected by the film crew from marauding water gun wielders.
Heather & friends tour La Sagrada Familia basilica, admiring Gaudi’s architectural wonder. It’s not all art though. Because the women are just out of college, they aren’t done partying. That night, at a crowded club, they run into Jack. He and Heather go outside to talk, and she finds herself intrigued by the New Zealander who is working his way across the continent. Either he’s being paid under the table or has a special Cute Pixie Man visa.
Maybe Jack could’ve been a remote worker, but he is too old-fashioned to live that way. In fact, he tells Heather that he is following the same route that his grandfather took across Europe after WWII. Thankfully, grandpa took a scenic route up the Spanish Coast and on to Portugal.
When Heather & Jack visit a Gaudi residential building with a hilly-looking rooftop, Jack proselytizes about how people are too focused on taking selfies for social media. Heather offers that maybe they are just having a fun. Jack realizes that he is an a-hole for being a judgey mansplainer, and apologizes.
Heather needs to fly back to NYC for her new entry level finance job. Jack asks, “What if you didn’t get on that flite?” He asks these sorts of things a lot. “What if you turn your back on certainty?” “What if you manifest a new aspiration?”
Heather starts to get into Jack because, just like an AI chatbot, he is spookily affirmative to any one of her speculations. “Jack, I wish I could find my life’s purpose.” “You’re almost there,” he’ll whisper “just know your real self is you.”
By the time they get to Bilbao and kiss in front of the Guggenheim modern art museum Heather is putting aside her pragmatism and belting out the 90’s sad anthem from 4 Non Blondes’ What’s Going On? (Enjoy a vid of this song playing over a plaintive mash up of He-Man cartoon scenes.)
I wasn’t too invested in what would happen with Heather & Jack’s blooming love. But I guess I cared enough to hope that neither one of them got hurt. I was, however, worried about the bulls in Pamplona. Jack & Heather go there for the running of the bulls. The animals are harangued through the streets of the Spanish town, then tormented and stabbed in the bull rings. I was glad that the couple passed on going to a bullfight.
Regarding the actors being able to pull our heart strings…
KJ Apa with his porcupine-spiked hair does not reach the level of the Before Sunrise performance of Ethan Hawke wearing his cabernet-colored turtleneck. If you’ve seen him as Archie Andrews on Riverdale, you will know to temper your expectations of his acting. To be fair, a series based on a comic strip about teens from eighty years ago isn’t exactly a Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-level training ground.
Madelyn Cline doesn’t have Julie Delpy’s great French accent, but she can really act. Heather’s dad is played by Josh Lucas of Sweet Home Alabama fame. Heather makes video phone calls from Europe where she tries to explain to him why she is not in New York but headed to Portugal.
I, for one, was all for Heather and Jack heading to Portugal so that I could scream at the screen I’ve been there! when they get to Lisbon. Take a break from the bedroom you two and get some sugary pastry tarts to share at São Jorge castle.
Before Sunrise’s lovers only made it to Vienna with less than a day to spend together before they had to part. So TMTLTY‘s couple have the better deal with extra cash and time to spend in Europe. What they don’t have is great conversations written for them by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan.
Even so, the screenplay has some believable conversations between Heather and her friends when they support each other’s adventures in romantic relationships. If Jack talked to some friends of his own, instead of being such a lone ranger, he might have avoided the mistake of deciding what’s best for the girlfriend without letting her in on his own struggles. Instead, he just reads boring passages from his granddad’s travel journal to Heather.
Live and learn, Archie of Riverdale.
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