Back Roads

Name: Back Roads
Director: Martin Ritt
Released: 1981

Martin Ritt

1981

Synopsis

A prostitute and a drifter find themselves bound together as they make their way through the rural South, doing what they have to do to survive.

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Recommendations

60
The New York Times
Less a movie than an extended sketch, and it's to the credit of Mr. Ritt, his stars and Gary Devore, the screenwriter, that the movie is so much fun, even given its occasional soggy patches.
60
Time Out
Very good on local colour but a bit sugary in its attitude to the central relationship, it would have been better taking a bleaker cue from Tommy Lee Jones' admirably dry performance.
60
Newsweek
Ritt and DeVore don't capitalize on their fairy-tale structure; they let the magic dribble away. The moviegoer knows from the start that this isn't a story about real people and accepts the fact. [16 Mar 1981, p.97]
50
Chicago Sun-Times
How could they take this material and make it really original? Maybe by refusing to be seduced by the Screenwriter's stock Hollywood "originality" and probing more deeply into the real human lives of the characters. The people in Back Roads are so heavily laden with schtick that they never have a chance to develop personalities.
50
TV Guide Magazine
Ritt and Field seem to have been trying to capitalize on the southern backwoods setting that served them so well in Norma Rae, but this time around they didn't have nearly as engaging a story with which to work.
50
Variety
Although both stars rise above script contrivances, they are somehow never an affecting romantic pair. All of their shared troubles would seem to make a great love story but they never share enough really intimate moments to carry it off.
42
Christian Science Monitor
Surprisingly, this is the work of director Martin Ritt and Sally Field, the star whose Norma Rae combined sharp drama with keen social awareness. Their new film is the junky underside of that good movie. [26 Mar 1981, p.19]
40
Washington Post
Indeed, you come out of Back Roads feeling more familiar with the configuration of Sally Field's spinal column and chestbone than the character she's struggling to embody.