An American road movie with issues. Three residents of a clinic for troubled young adults take their doctor's car and head off to see the ocean. Vincent (tourettes), Alex (obsessive compulsive) and Marie (anorexia) make an unlikely trio and there is constant conflict from the unending demands of their conditions. But the pressures of staying a step of ahead of their pursuers force them to bond in ways they could not foresee. While their behavioural problems give rise to a great deal of comedy, their route to greater understanding of one another, and themselves, is often tender and restorative.
Giving chase are the concerned doctor and Vincent's angry father, and they too see the world from very different standpoints. But common cause, and frustration, mean they too start to learn new perspectives.
This is a commercial movie, so towards the end it is no surprise to find a degree of the kind of emotional manipulation that Hollywood so often favours, but that doesn't detract from the performances and the essential message that the world needs to learn, and teach their kids, to look behind the surface behaviour at the people inside. All three characters hate the limitations their conditions impose upon them, and want people to see a person beyond the tics and obsessive behaviour.
A film that's funny, informative and life affirming. Although the transformation of Vincent's (presumably Republican) politician father into an empathetic human being was stretching credulity a bit far!
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