Along for the Ride

Along for the Ride

“Along for the Ride,” a film adaptation of a young adult romance novel by Sarah Dessen popular in the mid-2000s, makes clear early on exactly what it is. Auden (Emma Pasarow, playing her as quiet and thoughtful) is that hardheaded high school senior who doesn’t participate in the senior prank because she believes “as a transgressive act, it’s faulty.” Not that she’s ever done anything transgressive; she’s always been such a good girl made honor roll, got into college on scholarship and admits she was “more interested in working hard so the rest of my life could be great.”

Now, with summer ahead of her, Auden wonders if this might be when she should see about getting started on that great part. She has decided to stay with her dad and stepmom in Colby, a beach town where they run a boutique hotel. At home, she says, she only knows how to be one kind of person. “Maybe if I go to Colby,” she tells him before leaving home for good about 20 minutes later than planned but still probably early enough to get there by sunrise or something deeply meaningful like that, “I can be somebody else.”

If you were hoping instead that maybe this summer Auden will have to become more authentically herself and find some help in doing so from some handsome teen boy backed by frequent micro doses of what the closed captions call “melodic indie music” you’ve come to exactly the right place! If you want more than just maybe the first verse of this year’s song well.

Auden starts out acting like it’s Opposite Day or at least National Do The Exact Opposite Of What You Want Because It Is The Last Good Idea You Will Ever Have Day. She doesn’t know what she wants; she just knows it has to be something different from everything she’s ever wanted. What she’s never wanted is to hang out with the play by the rules good girl’s equivalent of the legendary “manic pixie dream girl,” whom I but maybe not you! shall refer to as the “soulful faun dream boy.”

That would be Eli (Belmont Cameli, in a role that is like what if John Cusack from “Say Anything” and Heath Ledger from “10 Things I Hate About You” were somehow both Moondoggie from “Gidget”). He will offer to take her on a “quest” to catch up on all the silly fun her serious mother thought was beneath them, because he has no doubt already done it or been dragged along by some other soulful faun who needed re-questing. He will turn out to be kind of a loner, so she can reunite him with his friends.

He will have hidden depths of sadness, and she will bring them out in a carefully chosen moment of vulnerability during which he might have let them remain hidden except for how they are also slowly killing him!!!! Also, they’re going to give each other opportunities to tell some stories and acknowledge some truths they haven’t even admitted themselves yet.

The movie is improved by Andie MacDowell as Auden’s mom, who shows up at this pastel-and-seashell beach community wearing very soigné black and gives just exactly enough slightly brittle bite to lines like “You’ll have to forgive me if I find it alarming how easily you’ve adapted to the world of your father’s new wife” so that we understand though Auden never does that it’s less snobbery than fear of losing her only daughter as she goes away to college.

It is not only Eli who makes a difference for Auden, Dessen shows us. Some of the best scenes are those in which we see Auden befriend other girls employed at her stepmother’s boutique, played by Genevieve Hannelius, Laura Kariuki and Samia Finnerty. A few awkward adjustment moments aside, Dessen skillfully avoids overdoing the mean girls or misunderstanding plot lines; it’s always lovely to behold bright, self-assured young women supporting one another and busting out some goofy dance moves every now and then.

She also gives us a Stars Hollow like sense of community, connection and tradition, as well as touches on the challenges and importance of helping and asking for help but most importantly, Auden reveals that by opening herself up to understandings about her own feelings and taking risks based upon them, she gains insight into those around her; namely parents this time around (but also) father figure(s).

Instead of becoming someone else entirely though she becomes more herself than ever before -that is true growth indeed! The message might not be anything new but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth listening to again.

Watch Along for the Ride For Free On Gomovies.