The Short History of the Long Road

I’m not a movie critic, but I loved this movie. But not for the reason you think.

The film The Short History of the Long Road is currently on Netflix. I stumbled on it after discovering that a brown and tan-colored Vanagon Westfalia was its star. At least to me.

It was written and directed by first-time helmer Ani Simon-Kennedy. Why she picked a Vanagon to cast is a question only she can answer, but it certainly made my day. The film features a somewhat beaten-down 1.9-liter Vanagon in nearly every scene. That’s unheard of for a feature film. Although there have been movies that do rely heavily on their “car stars.”

The film’s story revolves around a teenager confronting the reality of Van Life as her father Clint, played by Steven Ogg, roams across the U.S. to figure out his own life. You soon learn that Clint got custody of his daughter after a divorce.

His young daughter Nola is played by Sabrina Carpenter. Nola wants to explore a normal life, living in a house, and enjoying an education. But Clint is against the idea, sneering at public education, too. So Nola is home-schooled in the Vanagon on the road! Then after some pressure Clint finally relents, and that’s when things go sideways. No spoilers I promise.

The plot is somewhat predictable and drags at times, but the writing and acting are solid. Where this film takes off for me is when the Vanagon is taken into an auto shop for repairs. That’s when we meet actor Danny Trejo, who plays a tough guy mechanic, who knows his way around a Vanagon. He points out plenty of problems that Vanagon owners know plenty about, and Trejo does a great job explaining many of the Vanagon quirks. The dialogue was very realistic when it came to living in a Vanagon, so the producers did their homework depicting life on the road.

There are no action scenes, but lots of long drives with the Vanagon that were beautifully filmed, and plenty of sunsets from inside. Overall, I think it does a fair job of telling the story of #vanlife from my limited perspective of it.

Here’s some trivia: In real life, Ogg doesn’t know how to drive a manual transmission. So for the film, producers used a camera car platform called a “process trailer” to pull the Vanagon around for certain scenes.

It’s also a Tribeca Film Festival nominee for Best Narrative Feature, and for an indie film that’s some street cred.