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Review: ‘Cas & Dylan,’ a Road Movie Starring Richard Dreyfuss

Cas & Dylan
Directed by Jason Priestley
Comedy, Drama
Not Rated
1h 30m

Why another road movie about bickering mismatched travelers warily making friends on a cross-country journey? That cliché weighs heavily on “Cas & Dylan,” the feature film directorial debut of Jason Priestley (known mostly from his acting role on “Beverly Hills 90210”), even after you queasily succumb to the sentimentality of this formulaic two-hander.

This Canadian movie, from a screenplay by Jessie Gabe, begins in Winnipeg and ends in Vancouver and jounces along on the crackle of smart-aleck dialogue mouthed by its stars, Richard Dreyfuss and Tatiana Maslany (of “Orphan Black”). When the banter sputters, there is always the glorious scenery along the Trans-Canada Highway to divert you.

Mr. Dreyfuss’s character, Dr. Cas Pepper (the last name is good for half a chuckle), is an alternately glum and blustery physician dying from a malignant, inoperable brain tumor. Cas is bound for the Pacific Coast and a resting place not only for himself but for his dead dog, whose corpse he keeps in a cooler in the back of his car.

Ms. Maslany portrays his unwelcome passenger, Dylan Morgan, a scruffy young woman who fancies herself a writer and needs a ride to Vancouver to see a publisher.

Cas and Dylan meet by chance outside the hospital where Cas works. An inveterate hitchhiker, Dylan pressures Cas to give her a lift to the shack she shares with her abusive boyfriend, Bobby (Christopher Cordell). Cas drops her off, but before he can escape, Bobby chases Dylan out of the house with a gun, she jumps back into the car, and in his haste to leave, Cas accidentally hits Bobby. Mortified by the possibility that Bobby might be dead, the two flee. For the rest of the movie, Cas and Dylan are stuck with each other.

Sparks from the friction between a cranky old man and a mouthy spitfire who suggests a downscale Ellen Page drive the rest of the movie. Dylan, who initially claims her parents are circus performers working in Europe but eventually admits that they are “losers,” is a manipulative liar and petty thief who boasts that she has invented a literary genre, the “action romanture.” A sample of her fiction reveals her to be utterly devoid of basic writing skills. Somehow she has wangled a meeting with a West Coast publisher.

Cas, who plans to kill himself, is working on his suicide note but can’t seem to come up with a final farewell. There is a sweet little moment when they have dinner with an aged married couple who are still deeply in love after 54 years together. Afterward, Dylan gets the movie’s sharpest remark when she comments, “They’re like the Cleavers on ketamine.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: A Dog in the Cooler, a Hitchhiker on Board. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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