Stop And Go, A Pandemic Road Trip Movie

Directed by Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek, Stop and Go also goes by the title, Recovery. The film is a comedy-drama based entirely around the systematic changes the world has undergone in recent years due to the pandemic. The film begins with two sisters at a party having the type of conversations many of us look back on and in hindsight wonder how on Earth it all came to this. They talk about what they will be doing in the upcoming year. Jamie is a fourth-grade teacher and has just turned 30. She joined and gym and for all intents and purposes, things are looking up. Blake met a nice guy online and is simply happy to be alive.

Stop and Go begins with a decent amount of enthusiasm and likability as it goes through the motions of being cut off from the very things that we get up for in the morning. In a slight twist, they receive a letter informing them that the nursing home their nanna lives in has been struck by Covid. They are informed that the best advice would be for the family to retrieve her and take her home as the facility is severely understaffed.

Poking Fun at the Pandemic

Some of the initial phone calls to their beloved nanna are quite funny. Blake and Jamie are performed by Mallory Everton and Whitney Call. Both women have an easy back and forth-and could be easily mistaken for real sisters. Their rhetorical banter was entertaining in the first quarter. Stop and Go, however, runs into a monotonous rhythm and what was endearing and charming in the opening scenes slowly begins to crack at the seams. The two women take to the road, intent on driving 20 hours to rescue Nanna. An interlude of annoying phone calls to a student they charge with looking after the classroom mice slightly manage to break the experience of watching the two sisters sing songs in the car, make goofy faces, get petrol with sandwich bags in their hands, and FaceTime their older sister.

Who Doesn’t Like a Di*k Pic?

While I was watching Stop and Go it occurred to me that the storyline told in this way all sounds extremely humorous. Definitely, at times, it is. Mother of Movies is not suggesting this film will be unappealing to everyone. In fact, I think lots of people will watch this and find it very funny. For me though, the constantly forced banter, wisecracks, and pitter-patter chatter captured inside the car they are driving wore so thin, I had to turn the movie off.

My breaking point was listening to Blake talk about the man she had been on a date with prior to the pandemic beginning. They discuss the last text conversation and that her final message to him was a Gif. She repeatedly accidentally resends the Gif and eventually, she gets a response. It says the person who owned the phone died of Covid. Of course, this turns out to be a joke. Then for the punchline, the man sends a d*ck pic. Then the two women discuss this for a while before Blake begins kicking and punching things whenever the car is stopped.

Stop and Go Review

Cinematically, there is not a lot to say about Stop and Go. There is some pretty landscape scenery on their journey. There are also Facetime conversations that are laid out well. Short musical accents to highlight certain plot points are well-timed and the camera work is solid. At times I began thinking about some of the road trips I have been on and how many things I jammed into my tiny Suzuki Sierra. Blake and Jamie seemed to only pack a bag of carrots and looked pretty comfortable in comparison. I guess the comedic element just didn’t grab me here.

I give Stop and Go

2 “Covid is in charge now” out of 5

• Director: Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek
• Writer: Whitney Call, Mallory Everton
• Cast: Whitney Call, Mallory Everton, Julia Jolley, Anne Sward Hansen.

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