A/way: Review. By Josiah Teal.

From Eat, Pray, Love to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, travel and self-discovery often go hand-in-hand on the silver screen. A/way is no exception, as a new assignment kickstarts travel journalist Anna’s journey through grief, loss, and self-acceptance. While mourning the loss of her mother, Anna’s trip to Martinique leads her to explore within herself through the island’s people. Told through flashbacks to her life before Martinique and Anna’s interviews with locals, A/way is a personal drama with a journalistic lens on life’s biggest questions. 

Most of A/way‘s 60-minute runtime is a pure character-driven drama. Flashbacks chronicle Rosie McDonald’s Anna as she attempts to navigate college, friendship, and love after her mother’s passing. Dialogue is conversational through interviews on Martinique or through Anna’s relationships with her best friend Tori (Mckenzie Salvatierra-Custin) or boyfriend/study partner (Aaron Lee Wright). Yet Anna’s most significant arc stems from her late mother’s journal and the openness expressed through travel.  

Rosie McDonald brings a realness to Anna that makes everything from playful conversations to moments of longing grief feel natural. Written and directed by Derek Shane Garcia, McDonald brings the script to life, elevating each emotional scene with nuance. It’s a subtle, personal film that requires a delicate approach. McDonald is a highlight in the cast, allowing Anna’s experience to feel like hers.

With Martinique as a beautiful backdrop to Anna’s journey, her progression takes on a quality of fulfillment. Martinique’s vibrance gives a further cinematic quality to Anna’s transition from grief to accepting herself, who her mother was, and how she can reconnect with her mother’s memory. A/way captures the island with such grace it feels like the film is as much an ode to the island nation as Anna’s story. 

Garcia’s Cinéma vérité approach gives A/way the best bits of character-driven drama and a street-level documentary. A/way weaves the lines between realistic interviews between Anna and locals with clear setpiece conversations in apartment buildings. Many of the conversations in Martinique feel loose and organic, similar to Nomadland in how unscripted they sound, yet they are central to Anna’s character. By contrast, some of the pre-Martinique dialogue seems almost overly scripted, taking away from the organic tone of the overall narrative. 

A/way is for the indie film initiated. It’s quirky in all the right places, sweet without undercutting the drama, uses the budget well, and makes the most of the runtime. Those outside the sphere of modern indie may need a gateway film or two before diving into A/way. Moments in Martinique are standouts, allowing Garcia to shed some genre tropes and explore alongside Anna, weaving introspective drama with hopeful realization. A/way may not be the perfect “gateway drug” for indie cinema, but its themes of travel and self-discovery keep on an age-old tradition told through a creative, innovative lens.

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