Paradise Highway Review: An Incredible Thriller Has Morgan Freeman Tracking Juliette Binoche

 

Paradise Highway is a hell of a debut feature film for a writer/director. Anna Gutto distilled years of research into an incredibly unique script and then created a very entertaining movie, featuring acting powerhouses like Morgan Freeman, Juliette Binoche, Frank Grillo, and Cameron Monaghan, which tackles a very important subject. If a filmmaker's first major work is their calling card, then Gutto's phone will likely be ringing off the hook.

One of those rare films that's exciting, fun, and filled with suspense without being part of a franchise or relying on some gimmick, Paradise Highway is a gem that proves how refreshing it is to see original ideas onscreen. The movie follows the tough, terse female trucker Sally (Binoche) on the week that her beloved brother Dennis (Grillo) is set to be released from prison. Throughout his prison sentence, the siblings have coordinated different smuggling operations, using Sally's cross-country trucking job as a way to transport various goods. When Sally goes to pick up the goods for one last job before Dennis gets out, she realizes that she's tasked with smuggling a child for sex trafficking.

Juliette Binoche Plays Sally in Paradise Highway

Ethical dilemmas abound here, obviously, as Sally sadly transports the young Leila, a barely teenage girl who may cower but, when given the opportunity, will kill to survive. Leila's essentially property of a child sex trafficking ring, the same shady group that has helped Dennis through prison. But when this job falls apart, Dennis' release from prison and Sally's life come into the crosshairs of some vile people. It's all very tense, sometimes extremely sad, and executed precisely like clockwork (at least until a somewhat rushed ending, though that's a small complaint).

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One of the best parts of Paradise Highway is watching the interactions between Sally and Leila, and the development between each of them. Sally is a fascinating character, worthy of Binoche's genius; she's of course morally icky but finds herself confronting an ethical impasse that's too much for her, one which makes her question her morality and relationships as a whole. She's a very strong and stubborn woman, but one who was irrevocably damaged as a child by her father, which is the reason her sibling bond is so strong (bordering on the incestuous at times, at least for Dennis)

Hala Finley is Incredible Alongside Morgan Freeman

Leila is strong as well, but society has put her in a position of immense weakness. Scrawny and terrified, one can only imagine the amount of pain she's been through, something that Hala Finley tragically expresses with deep eyes. One of the best child actors working today, Finley utterly stuns in Paradise Highway, even amongst such a stacked cast. The amount of trauma and tragedy this 13-year-old has visibly endured is heartbreakingly conveyed through an incredibly mature performance; while Finley has proven her skills in Man With a Plan and Back Roads, it's Paradise Highway where one can see the makings of a true star.

The film oscillates between their story and the quest of two cops in pursuit of the sex trafficking ring, Finley Sterling (Monaghan) and Agent Gerick (Freeman). The car rides between Finley and Gerick perfectly compliment Sally and Leila's semi-truck journey — on one blurry side of the increasingly gray law, two women on opposite poles of age travel the countryside; on the other, a retired agent and a rookie officer follow them. That way, each polarity of this great road trip movie contains elements of difference and antagonism which interrogate each other to come to a better understanding of some type of truth