{"id":775294,"date":"2026-07-02T11:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/775294\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T11:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:03:10","slug":"500-miles-review-an-emotional-and-surprising-road-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/775294\/","title":{"rendered":"500 Miles review \u2014 ‘an emotional and surprising road trip’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finn (Roman Griffin Davis) and his younger brother Charlie (Dexter Sol Ansell) have run away from home. They have a plan: travel from Sheffield to the small seaside town of Dingle, Ireland, to reunite with their estranged grandfather (Bill Nighy) in a bid to bring their family back together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you asked me where we were happiest,\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0say here, in Dingle. I suppose I thought it would always be like that,\u201d Finn\u00a0(Roman Griffin Davis)\u00a0narrates at the beginning of Morgan Matthews\u2019\u00a0tender road-trip tear-jerker\u00a0500 Miles (which, despite the title, is not a Proclaimers musical \u00e1 la Sunshine On Leith<\/a>).\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0easy to see what Finn\u2019s getting at: when we meet them\u00a0in a flashback,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a picture-perfect day for Finn and his family, sharing\u00a0special moments on the beach with his grandparents, playing\u00a0boules\u00a0and building sandcastles.<\/p>\n

\"500<\/p>\n

Those moments are just\u00a0a memory.\u00a0In the present day, Finn and Charlie\u00a0(Dexter Sol Ansell)\u00a0no longer have a relationship with their grandfather\u00a0(Bill\u00a0Nighy, who tells us everything we need to know with his eyes). Their grandmother has passed\u00a0away, and their parents are constantly bickering.\u00a0Sneaking out of their home, the brothers\u00a0decide to embark on\u00a0an ill-advised road trip, from Sheffield to the west coast of Ireland, to track down their grandfather and reunite the family. Their journey\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0be an easy one, as\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0too young to travel without adult supervision, and Matthews\u2019\u00a0clever framing reminds us how vast the countryside\u00a0is,\u00a0hills and mountains dwarfing their small frames. Their journey gets a surprise assist from Kait (a lovely Maisie Williams), who they meet on a train\u00a0while she is busking.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s\u00a0a wonderfully authentic relationship between Finn and Charlie at the heart of\u00a0500 Miles.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s\u00a0a wonderfully authentic relationship between Finn and Charlie at the heart of\u00a0500 Miles. As Finn, Davis is terrific, continuing to impress after his breakthrough performance in\u00a0Jojo Rabbit<\/a>. Ansell,\u00a0best known for his role in\u00a0A Knight\u00a0Of\u00a0The\u00a0Seven Kingdoms<\/a>,\u00a0is delightful as Charlie, managing to toe a tricky line of feeling both larger-than-life and authentically grounded.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0always a risk to anchor your film on\u00a0child\u00a0performances, but Finn and Charlie\u2019s brotherly love is likely to remind you of\u00a0your\u00a0relationship with your own siblings.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0film hinges on a reveal that, once\u00a0unveiled, shifts everything into a new perspective. Whether it\u00a0works for\u00a0you will\u00a0likely define\u00a0how you feel about the movie: if\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0averse to heavy doses of sentimentality, then\u00a0you\u2019ll\u00a0probably wind\u00a0up annoyed. And this film is\u00a0drenched\u00a0in sentimentality. But while\u00a0500 Miles\u00a0can feel cloying and heavy-handed \u2014 a relentless, overbearing score\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0help \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0hard not to be moved by it, thanks to the wonderful work of its two leads.<\/p>\n

Though 500 Miles tries too hard to wring tears from your eyes, knockout performances by the film\u2019s two young actors sustain this emotional and surprising road trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finn (Roman Griffin Davis) and his younger brother Charlie (Dexter Sol Ansell) have run away from home. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-775294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}