‘Propeller One-Way Night Coach,’ made by, for and about John Travolta

Flaunting a skin-tight beret and suspicious beard, John Travolta walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday to promote his directorial debut “Propeller One-Way Night Coach.” 

Sneaking into the SAG-AFTRA’s feature-length requirement with a 61-minute runtime, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” is based on the semi-autobiographical children’s story of the same name written by Travolta in 1997. It follows Jeff (Clark Shotwell), an 8-year-old boy moving to Los Angeles with his mother in the early 1960s, and his first experience on an airplane. The original book was written for children, but the intended audience of the film is puzzling — it seems that the only viewer this film targets is Travolta himself.

With a visual style reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” and an atmosphere similar to “The Polar Express,” “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” strives to be a children’s movie that parents can still enjoy. But with its focus on 1960s aerial engineering that will estrange young viewers and not enough of a firm story to intrigue adults, the film falls into a strange abyss. It is almost as if this entire movie exists solely to appeal to those who rode propellor planes as a child. 

Screening at Cannes’ own Cineum IMAX theater, moviegoers waited in anticipation, asking festival volunteers if they were in the right line for “the Travolta movie.” Once the screening began, odd line readings and quiet jokes were met with confused and hesitant chuckles, as if many did not know what to make of what they were seeing on screen.

As Travolta narrates the vast majority of the short story, the actors who play Jeff and his mother, Helen (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett), are given few lines and little space to step into their roles. Shotwell, who appears to have been endlessly advised to act bewildered throughout the film, unfortunately gives a performance evocative of one Jake Llyod in “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.”

Additionally, the expository narration often describes things the audience can clearly see on screen (for example: Jeff’s mother will turn to him and smile, and Travolta’s voice will tell us just that). While it narrowly avoids being condescending, this choice leads to constant repetition in a film that already has an unfathomably short runtime.

Travolta expecting the audience to feel some sort of magical nostalgia over events only he experienced is utterly unique, if nothing else. Despite the aforementioned faults, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” remains oddly entertaining, although perhaps not in the way it was intended to be.

After a 50-plus year acting career, Travolta was surprised onstage with an honorary lifetime achievement Palme d’Or before Friday’s “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” premiere. However, the “Saturday Night Fever,” “Grease” and “Pulp Fiction” star’s choice to move behind the camera may prove to be a forgotten moment in his career, as “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” seems to be directionless in finding a fanbase.

Regions: Cannes