Kritiken

There is a sparseness to Hit the Road that reveals the intuitiveness of Panahi’s filmmaking, his grasp of these characters and how they tug and poke at each other, and his understanding of the ways fear, paranoia, and loss turn us into people we might not like, let alone recognize.

By concealing some of the nitty-gritty, Panahi makes an even more fiercely political point throughout “Hit The Road.” Here, the details don’t matter as much as their heartbreaking consequences: the irreversibly burdened families unfairly torn away from their loved ones, and a society that carries those scars.

Panahi’s script skillfully punctures the gloom with a hectic, high volume, cross-talking gallows humor that the entire family... engages in as a means of solidarity.

What makes “Hit the Road” so memorable and devastating is the way it explores normal life under duress. An unseen, oppressive force... imposes its will on them. That invisible cruelty makes the tenderness and good humor of this movie all the more precious, and almost unbearable.

A seamless comedic affair, perfectly meshing the aimless and the heartfelt in a consistently amusing travelogue of sorts... Even with its slight narrative structure, there’s a pulsing and purposeful core nestled within Hit The Road, whose reduced dependence on high stakes or even conflict makes room for the self-projecting subtext that drives its emotional beats.

Above all, though, the movie is a love story, and a great one—it depicts the passionate bonds of a close family, and Panahi’s view of their love is all the truer and more vital for the acerbity and pugnacious candor of their relationships,

[A] miraculous debut... A beautifully tender comedy that tears your heart in half with a featherlight touch — a film that swerves between tragedy and gallows humor with the expert control of a stunt driver.

[The film's] 93 minutes whip by so airily, it’s possible not to realize how much you’ve learned to love the family whose road trip you’ve shared in, until the credits roll and you immediately start to miss them.

A road trip movie with an aching heart and a slow accretion of revelations ahead of it – a drama that leaves the dramatics for later and is all the more powerful for it... You’d never know that the director is a first-timer... Together, [Panahi and his cast] have created something completely fresh with the skill of veterans.

Hit The Road is a small but beautiful film, and a terrific calling card for Panahi Jr.

Panahi manages to keep an impressive amount of plates spinning all at once in “Hit the Road,” a breath of fresh air and a truly original work that marks him as a talent to watch.

An intimate, frequently funny, poignant and deeply moving piece of work... Hit the Road is damned near to being a masterpiece – if it isn’t simply one already.