THE STORY – Simon, a struggling documentary filmmaker, enjoys free flights courtesy of his best friend and roommate, Bruce, who works for an airline. However, when Beatrice, a more successful filmmaker, enters the picture and starts dating Bruce, Simon risks flying too close to the sun.
THE CAST – Tristan Turner, Anthony Oberbeck & Naomi Asa
THE TEAM – Travis Wood & Alex Mallis (Directors/Writers) & Weston Auburn (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 91 Minutes
There’s a scene in Trey Edward-Shults and Abel’s “The Weeknd” Tesfaye’s dreadful, misbegotten “Hurry Up Tomorrow” that has been memed to death due to its absurdity, but I promise, it’s real. It features Tesfaye (playing Abel) and his veneers repeatedly screaming, “Shut the f**k up“ at Jenna Ortega’s Anima, an act of liberation in response to her clingy, overly-familiar behavior. He wants her to leave him alone, to let him answer his phone and continue his world tour in solace, even though he specifically told her never to leave his side the night before. The details of what was said matter as much as anything else in the movie, but the exchange itself sticks out. It’s not the “acting“ we notice, nor is it even the teeth: It’s the idea that someone could get so sick and tired of another’s actions in such a short amount of time to the point where they would snap in this fashion, suddenly shouting them into oblivion despite the cozy cuddles they shared the night before.
Simon (Tristan Turner) and Bruce (Anthony Oberbeck of “The Civil Dead”) aren’t the snuggling types, but it doesn’t take long for you to expect that at some point in “The Travel Companion,“ the former will be on the receiving end of a similar scolding from his longtime roommate. A struggling documentarian who we first see struggling to get a word in after a showcase for his graduate seminar’s thesis films, Simon is a recognizable enough figure whose needy side isn’t one that co-directors Travis Wood and Alex Mallis (who also co-wrote the script with Weston Auburn) are willing to shy away from. His dead-end job as a videographer and editor of the videos you see playing on taxi cab LED displays routinely pulls him away from his at-home desk, where he’d rather be procrastinating the long-gestating edit of his first feature, a nonfiction essay film about “geographical diocese“ and “what divides us, even what unites us,“ or some shit like that. He’snot exactly sure what it is, but he really loves talking about it, and he especially loves telling Bruce about it. And Bruce has to listen, not just because he has few other friends, but because Simon has been filming internationally thanks to his cohabitant’s job at an airline, thus affording him the titular designation as Bruce’s “travel companion.“
Said title – Simon’s and the film’s – refers to one’s ability to book flights on a standby basis through their coordinator; that’s Bruce in this case. And while all 91 minutes of “The Travel Companion’s” runtime unfold in New York City – “This is a New York film, and we wouldn’t want to premiere it anywhere else,“ Mallis shared before the movie’s unveiling on the second night of the Tribeca Film Festival – Simon would have you convinced that it’s ready to jet off to Barcelona, South Africa, or Amsterdam at any moment (“You’re always talking about the red-light district,“ Simon tells Bruce, though the latter replies, “I’ve never said anything about [that]. All about the green-light district. Keep it clean). Simon mentions reserving his next trip approximately every six minutes, and for a while, Bruce is game. No one else is around to use this benefit, after all. Only Beatrice (Naomi Asa), Simon’s more accomplished classmate, has ever hung out with the duo, and it was once when she tagged along for post-screening drinks.
She did seem to hit it off with Bruce, who seems pretty busy lately. Quieter, too. And he did say he met up with her again after that trip to the bar. It’s probably nothing. At least, that’s how Simon seems to think about it until Bruce becomes even more private about his daily life and cagier about whether or not Simon can use his travel perk next year. Viewers need not have an investigative background to deduce that Bruce and Beatrice have struck up a courtship, one that threatens Simon’s previously eternal standby status, seeing that one’s typical travel companion would be their partner or spouse, not their roommate. And the ensuing dramatics aren’t really all that dramatic, despite the movie’s premise promising that Simon might fly “too close to the sun.“ Instead, what makes “The Travel Companion“ as incisive as it turns out to be isn’t necessarily its humor (a definite plus) nor its authentic performances (ditto) but its core philosophy, examined with the kind of thorough effort a graduate thesis would kill for.
In layman’s terms, Simon’s penchant for poking the bear doesn’t result in him killing someone, accidental or not. That would have been more akin to “The Travel Companion“ if Ari Aster or Jim Cummings had directed it. Wood and Mallis are more interested in physical manifestations of jealousy and impatience that don’t turn to violence as a last-ditch effort to obtain what they desire. By casting relative newcomer Tristan Turner (Netflix’s “The Residence) in the lead, the directing pair smartly created a monster that will serve as a nightmare for audiences while remaining a perfect fit for the film they set out to make. Turner’s Simon is kind, but he always seems to want and/or need something, and the connections he makes with strangers throughout the film tend to dance far closer to the harassment line than they should. It’s a role (and performance) that doesn’t work if we don’t believe that Simon halfheartedly recognizes how much he’s asking for from his fellow man, and it’s a credit to Turner for maintaining the innocent allure of a guy who just wants someone to listen to his gripes. Those familiar with Anthony Oberbeck’s work will immediately clock his being a perfect foil for this pained optimism, and the improv specialist’s off-the-cuff performance art works wonders against Turner’s giddy severity (After the screening, Turner even said that it threw him off during production, not that that made Oberbeck stop).
Operating in a tonal vein that Ryan Martin Brown (“Free Time”) and Tynan DeLong (“Dad & Step-Dad”) should be proud to have influenced, “The Travel Companion” isn’t revelatory nor as consistently hilarious as those 2024 comedies. Its plot is just as thin as those prior two films, a quality that might lead to a question of whether “something” will happen. However, Wood and Mallis’ film succeeds as a mellow takedown of masculinity due to its understanding of its characters, their quirks, and how much their expectations have defined their lives at the time we meet them. It’s clear that the co-directors intended to identify what causes two men to grow apart – it feels very “Friendship“ coded, minus the Ocean View Dining pants – as well as what happens once they do. And though their film doesn’t explicitly answer those questions, it’s better off for it, alternatively dedicating time to how difficult it can be to describe your own growth. In its perfect final shot, the titular “Travel Companion“ tries his hand at sharing that experience but fittingly forgets to turn on the microphone. He never had to before; now, finally, people are willing to listen.
