Goin' Down the Road (1970)

85% of users liked it
(328 ratings)

Two men in their mid-twenties chase their dreams to the big city with tragic results in this acclaimed piece of low-key neorealism from Canada. Joey (Paul Bradley) and Peter (Doug McGrath) are best friends from a small town in Nova Scotia. With jobs scarce and prospects slim at home, Joey and Peter… More Two men in their mid-twenties chase their dreams to the big city with tragic results in this acclaimed piece of low-key neorealism from Canada. Joey (Paul Bradley) and Peter (Doug McGrath) are best friends from a small town in Nova Scotia. With jobs scarce and prospects slim at home, Joey and Peter decide to pack up their meager belongings and head west to Toronto, where they're convinced better luck awaits them. Joey's uncle refuses to take in the travelers, and Peter's friends turn out to be short on job leads, but after a few rough nights, Joey, a practical sort, lands a job loading cases in a ginger ale bottling plant. Peter has aspirations toward better things, but it quickly becomes obvious he lacks the education or the temperament for office work, and before long he's hefting cases alongside Joey. For a while, the guys get along on their 80 dollars a week, and Joey finds a girlfriend in Betty (Jayne Eastwood), a pretty but tough-talking waitress. Peter has his eyes on Nicole (Nicole Morin), a beautiful woman who works in the plant's office, but after he gathers up the courage to take her out on the town, Nicole rejects his advances and he's left alone and humiliated. When Joey learns that Betty is pregnant, the two marry, but within a few weeks, both Joey and Peter are laid off, thanks to a seasonal slowdown, and their new lives begin to slip through their fingers. Shot in 16 mm on a shoestring budget, Goin' Down the Road became an unexpected critical success in both Canada and the United States and was named the best English-language Canadian feature of the century by the Toronto-based newsweekly MacLean's. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG, 1 hr. 30 min.
Directed By: Donald Shebib
Written By: William Fruet
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Jul 2, 1970 Wide
On DVD: Nov 19, 2002
Studio: Chevron Pictures

Critic Reviews

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Goin' Down the Road is about hard times here and now, and it's the best movie to hit town in a long time.
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
...Goin' Down the Road is still surprisingly relevant today.

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Featured Audience Ratings

Daniel P

Made me think of the last line in a song by the Hold Steady: "In the end, only the girl knows the whole truth / In the end, I bet no one learns a lesson." Commonly thought of as the movie that put Canadian film on the map, this is a low-budget, documentary-like story… More
Made me think of the last line in a song by the Hold Steady: "In the end, only the girl knows the whole truth / In the end, I bet no one learns a lesson." Commonly thought of as the movie that put Canadian film on the map, this is a low-budget, documentary-like story about two working class friends who leave their Nova Scotia home behind and set off for Toronto. Uneducated and basically unemployable, the lads work at a bottling plant, meet women, drink too much, lose their jobs, go bust and then take one drastic action to try to make things good again... misguided, drastic action... With a budget, this film could have been a legend. As it is, it's an important signpost, but it's not a masterpiece or anything. It's most valuable for being part of that lyrico-gritty realist movement in the 70s (think Scorsese, later), as a film unafraid to tell it like it was. Neo-realism, as with all trends when they get to Canada, a good 30 years later. Notable, believable and depressing - a good movie, in all, with some good early Bruce Cockburn songs, and one that Bruce McDonald must have loved. And no: not all Canadians are named Bruce. I promise.
Emily A

Aw man, is this what the world thinks of when they think of Canadian cinema? The only thing more despressing than that thought is this movie itself. This movie is about two obnoxious losers who set themselves up for disappointment and failure, screw things up then go back home with… More
Aw man, is this what the world thinks of when they think of Canadian cinema? The only thing more despressing than that thought is this movie itself. This movie is about two obnoxious losers who set themselves up for disappointment and failure, screw things up then go back home with nothing to show for thier hardships. It's very seldom interesting and lack any levity whatsoever that would have made this heavy-as-lead movie a little more buoyant. For a film voted one of Canada's greatest of all time, I really expected something special. This would not have been it.