Road to Edmond, The

By: Marty

By: Amos Lassen

"THE ROAD TO EDMOND"
Looking at Faith
Amos Lassen

Cleo (Nathaniel Welch), is a youth pastor in an evangelical church who is informed right at the start (via email!) that the governing board is giving him a two-week leave of absence due to a yet-to-be-revealed misstep. Within 30 seconds of receiving this, Cleo is off on a bike trip with a backpack, bag, and fishing pole.
But, this ride ends when he stops to rest at a country store and his bike is run over by a beaten up white van driven by Larry (Tripp Fuller). Larry is a slob who speaks with a stoner drawl and he is the perfect foil for more straight-laced serious Cleo. Larry doesn't exactly apologize for running over Cleo's bike, but he offers him a ride. It takes Cleo only a moment to get over his indignation about this series of events and he climbs into "White Lightning." Both men's stories begin to come out in small portions as they ride along: Cleo's suspension is based on a doctrinal issue that also has real consequences for someone under his pastoral care, while Larry is on a quest to the city of Edmond to make peace with his family. Each man's story gets a particular treatment.

Cleo's issue is going to be the cause of explicit theological conversation. As soon as he divulges that he's a youth pastor, Larry jumps on him with a series of questions and provocations, which he puts down and picks up again for the next hour or more. This all takes place in the van as they ride and during a two-day by a river when the van stops running. Whether the men are sitting around a campfire or next to each other in the front seat, they trade comments about the nature of faith, what some churches require for people to feel included, and how far-reaching God's grace actually is. Larry tries to get Cleo to loosen up by provoking him to swear, drink, and smoke pot.

The longer these two spend together, the more Larry's story begins to take over. The film pretty much forgets about Cleo's issues for a while as we learn more about who Larry is, where he's going, and how he seems to know so much insider lingo when it comes to church life. Cleo becomes an observer for a series of tasks that Larry needs to undertake as part of why he's on the road to begin with.
By the end, Larry completes his quest in a satisfying and definitive fashion. It's an ending that does well in communicating the emotional depth of his struggle to find peace for himself. Cleo's story, on the other hand, seems to continue past the credits. He may have some clarity about his path forward, but we're not as sure in part because we spent so much time the second half of the movie with Larry.
The conversations between the two are often very straightforward and provide for discussion. This is an exploration of progressive faith and the toll that more conservative forms have taken on people over the years. Cleo confronts the nature of truth. He always held one belief, but through Larry realizes that his belief might not reflect who God is or the nature of love in Christ. At the heart of the film is the question of same-sex attractions. It is not really about same-sex relationships or marriage, although both come up. Cleo is from a tradition that prohibits same-sex attraction. Larry leads him to see God's love transcends human boundaries.
We see the openness, closure, beliefs, and values of the men during their ride. The film challenges us to think about ourselves and how and what we believe. It isless about Christianity and the Church and more about the process of deconstruction. Here is a faith based film that includes swearing, drinking smoking pot and the revision of recent Christian sexual ethics to bridge the cultural divide between Christianity and the large number of people who smoke pot, swear, drink and find no issue with homosexuality. Can faith be a part of a swearing, drinking, smoking, gay supporting culture? We see here that it can.