Backroads to Vegas, now on video as Love Notes, tells the story of a mysterious woman who picks up an armed desperado on her way to Las Vegas. Like in Sherezade, she tells him three stories in her attempt to save her life, all of them ending in the death of some handsome romantic hunk. The first about an imprisoned lover in Latin America being tortured before his execution is barely watchable, possibly making Zero Dark Thirty tame in comparison. The film stalls through Hemingway's rambling narrative filled with incomplete metaphors and symbols about past and future, life and death. I couldn't help but assume it was reedited after her death to exploit public curiosity about this tragic event. I at first heard Hemingway had died of starvation. This should be cautionary tale for chums of the sadly common school of acting where an actress accepts any part to keep her clothes on, but falls into an ensemble of doped and drunk cheap film makers who party hardy. Several surprise endings for this movie came to mind, so it's sad the writers only focused on each episode instead of developing the two main character's stories and didn't surprise anyone at all. It felt like a restaurant with a perfect atmosphere but no food to eat. If only Hemingway had a part in the fantasy stories it would've saved the show.
