Dir/Wri: David Pablos | Spain Mexico 2025 93’
This neon-drenched Mexican road movie wastes no time in getting down to business. In the sleazy backwater of a darkened motorway bar two strangers meet, one asking the other for a lift on his truck and offering a nice little teaser in the shape of a sniff of cocaine.
Naturally the driver is sceptical but off they set across the desert, each keeping their backstories nicely zipped up until they spill out slowly on this long journey into the unknown, real and metaphorical.
Zeleno, the younger man, is gay; the elder, Muneco (Osvaldo Sanchez) is married with kids and happy to share his sexual moves as identical to the way he handles his hefty truck. Muneco makes no secret of sleeping around – it’s par for the course in his line of work, and there’s plenty of opportunity. Veleno is more guarded with his story. Spurred on by lines of coke the two keep on going into the night and as they hatch a plan to go into business the drug fuelled pace picks up and a strange attraction catching fire.
Imaginative visuals and a spare use of sound keep this arthouse thriller pulsing along with its mysteriously allure. Athough the extended chiaroscuro blowjob scene perhaps makes On the Road rather too edgy for most mainstream audiences but these are sensitively done and erotic. Muneco points out he’s happy to have been pleasured but not keen for it to go on.
David Pablos creates a tense mood with his original narrative and intriguing central character who is clearly hiding a murky secret. Although he’s not a psychopath Veleno is not afraid to resort to extreme violence to get what he wants, although he will later regret it and open show his vulnerability in revealing the reason for his mindset in a story about his father beating him up as a child on discovering his gayness.
But there’s another reason for Valeno’s defensive behaviour and we soon discover the terrible secret that will drag also Muneco into a darkness he never imagined. On The Road is a well-paced and impressive thriller making its world premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival 2025 @MeredithTaylor
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 27 August 7 September 2025
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