Closer Look: Deep Thoughts for Sossamon in Monte Hellman’s Road to Nowhere

In Venice this year, there’s the more “known” tale of rivalry between young females in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and then we have an additional, lesser-known girls “backstabbing one another” with Monte Hellman’s Road to Nowhere. Best known for Two-Lane Blacktop and he helped produce Venice head jury member Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, the 77 year-old Hellman has been inactive for some time (he did direct “Stanley’s Girlfriend” – an episode for Trapped Ashes alongside folks such as Ken Russell and Joe Dante, but for the most part, it’s been a job in teaching film in California that has kept the director occupied. How will this romantic film noir thriller play out in the Main Competition of a major film festival is anyone’s guess. 

Written by Variety’s Executive Editor Steven Gaydos, this is about a young filmmaker who becomes enmeshed in a criminal scheme while making a movie on location. Dominique Swain plays an investigative blogger who uncovers the supposedly true crime story that the film is based on. Shannyn Sossamon plays the femme fatale at the center of the story.