How I Got Lost, a low-key look at how two friends move on in the wake of personal difficulties, is well meaning but slow moving, and its ending won't appeal to everyone. Set against a backdrop of post-September 11 New York City, the movie follows two lifelong friends – one who's compartmentalizing his life, taking few chances, and one who's lashing out and acting out, each in the funk of a sustained mental freefall.
Jake (Jacob Fishel) is an aspiring novelist whose career as a sportswriter is creeping along; he's the one who's been recently dumped by a "free-spirited" (read: independently selfish) beauty who appears to manipulate Jake at every turn, for her own gain. Andrew (Aaron Stanford) is reacting to his own professional demise (he's just been fired) by drinking heavily.
It may seem that these two are bound to embark on a wacky road trip wherein they metaphorically find themselves, and that's half of what happens next; they do take off in the middle of the night – at Andrew's behest – with no particular destination in mind, but no zany escapades ensue. Instead, we learn – not really a spoiler – that Andrew's estranged dad has just passed away, and they're actually on their way to the funeral.
Once they get to the town in which Andrew's dad lived, each friend reacts to adversity somewhat differently; one decides to stay and help with the funeral arrangements, and one does not. Thrown into the mix is a pretty waitress named Leslie (Rosemarie DeWitt of "The United States of Tara") who – somewhat abruptly – falls for one of the guys.
Slice-of-life character studies can be difficult to talk about, because they're even more subjective than most movies. For me, How I Got Lost was slow without much of a payoff at the end. Or in the middle, for that matter; for the most part, the movie felt like it was drifting as aimlessly as its characters. Jacob is likable and does the right thing, and Andrew is somewhat less likable and hardly ever does the right thing. Both are believable characters, and their chemistry – and that of Fishel and Stanford – was palpable.
But I think the movie lacked a real hook to get me to care much about the characters beyond the superficiality of "I hope they wind up happy." The characters themselves were generic (a straight man, an obnoxious drunk), and although it was clear they were good pals, they never really resonated beyond those broad definitions. Add that to the methodical pacing of the movie, and I became bored pretty quickly.
Your mileage may vary, but I found How I Got Lost – although a serious look at dealing with pain and grief – to be a little to stuffy and downbeat. Without a lighter yin to its desolate yang, the movie just stumbles along like a college student awakening the morning after pulling an all nighter, with senses dulled and motor skills only slightly functionable.
