Best
Female Road Trip Films
Following a five year
hiatus from rom-coms Sarah Jessica Parker returns in the brilliant
All Roads Lead to Rome.
When Maggie (Sarah Jessica
Parker, Sex and The City),
an uptight single mother from New York, decides to whisk her troubled
teenage daughter Summer (Rosie Day, Misfits)
away to a picturesque Tuscan village for some much-needed bonding, it
isn’t long before the perfect holiday becomes the perfect getaway.
On their arrival Maggie
unexpectedly runs into Luca (Raoul Bova, The
Tourist) - a handsome ex-lover still a
bachelor and living with his eighty-year-old mother. With Luca and
Maggie attempting to navigate the ghosts of relationships past,
Summer, who is missing her wayward boyfriend in NYC, and Carmen,
secretly planning a wedding against her son’s wishes, find a common
ground. Impulsively stealing Luca’s car to race to Rome, the pair
are quickly pursued by Maggie and Luca - the former flames are forced
to reconnect, realising that sometimes true love deserves a second
chance.
In celebration of All
Roads Lead to Rome arriving on digital
platforms from the 8th
February and on DVD from the 29th
of February, 2016 courtesy of Signature Entertainment, we take a look
at the best female road trips on the big screen...
Crossroads (2002)
Starring Britney Spears,
Zoe Saldana, and Taryn Manning, Crossroads
follows three childhood friends as they road trip across the United
States. As children the three girls bury a box, making a pact to open
it on their last day of high school. However, things don’t quite
pan out for the friends as they all join separate social groups. One
is model student, one is a prom queen who is already engaged to her
boyfriend, and the other is a pregnant recluse. The box turned into
the only thing connecting the girls and on their final day of school
they gathered together to open it, spurring the start of their
adventure and the revitalization of their friendship.
Spice World (1997)
Step into the world of the
iconic British pop group The Spice Girls as they travel around London
in their double-decker tour bus before performing their biggest gig
yet, a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. The girls encounter a
selfish newspaper mogul and his photographer, a stalker film
director, two Hollywood writers who keep pitching absurd ideas, and a
manger that refuses to let them rest. Through all these hardships the
girls begin to see clearly and gain an understanding of what truly
matters in life.
Eat Pray Love (2010)
Despite having a husband,
a home, and a solid career, Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) was not happy
and yearned for change. Following the collapse of her marriage Liz
decides to set out on a journey of self-discovery, travelling to
three parts of the globe: Italy, India, and Indonesia. In Italy she
learns the local language and rekindles her love for food, in India
she visits an ashram and meets a yogi who teaches her the importance
of spiritual peace, and finally she travels to Bali where she
unexpectedly discovers the meaning of true love.
Thelma & Louise
(1991)
Less a road trip and more
a cross country chase, Thelma & Louise is
a story of true friendship. Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a waitress at
a diner with an absentee boyfriend and Thelma (Geena Davis) is a
submissive housewife with a demanding husband. Following the decision
to go on a trip together, things take a turn for the worse when
Louise shoots a man who was attempting to rape Thelma. Their weekend
getaway escalates into a mission to escape cops and reach peace in
Mexico. The taste of freedom consumes the ladies making their journey
all the more entertaining in an enthralling build-up to an ending
that’s to die for.
Tammy (2014)
Melissa McCarthy takes
this lead in this outrageous comedy, as the titular character who,
after losing her job at a fast food restaurant, returns home to find
her husband enjoying a romantic meal with the neighbour. She
immediately packs up to her nearby parent’s house- only to be
denied the use of her mom's car to drive to Niagara Falls. Resorting
to an "ailing" grandmother, she doesn’t bank on Grandma
Pearl (Sarandon) wanting in on the road trip. From finding love in a
bar to robbing a restaurant to bail Pearl out of jail, the quirky
road trip keeps up the pace throughout, with charming central
performances from the leads.
Wild (2014)
This film proves that not
all road trips have to take place in a car or oversized tour bus to
render moments of momentous self-discovery. After a series of
unfortunate familial events Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) goes
down a dark path of reckless and destructive behaviour. At her lowest
point she decides to snap out of it and embark down a different a
path, the Pacific Crest Trail. She takes on the enormous 1,100 mile
trek completely alone, an incredibly hazardous task for someone as
inexperienced as Cheryl. However, through the hardships she manages
to heal the damaged part inside her and come out on top.
***
ALL
ROAD LEAD TO ROME is on digital platforms now, and on DVD from 29th
February, 2016, courtesy of Signature Entertainment
