Travolta’s directorial debut has screened, and one critic dubbed it a ‘disaster’Travolta’s directorial debut has screened, and one critic dubbed it a ‘disaster’
John Travolta’s new film is a dud. It shows why great actors can be bad directors
Apple TVThe star’s directorial debut Propeller One-Way Night Coach has premiered at Cannes – and one critic dubbed it a ‘disaster’. It’s the latest example of an A-lister heading behind the camera with baffling results.
At the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night, the festival’s dapper organiser, Thierry Frémaux, introduced a screening of John Travolta’s new film Propeller One-Way Night Coach – the first he has directed. “I have a theory about films made by actors,” said Frémaux. “They’re always intimate, unique, personal, and full of ideas of cinema.”
Well, maybe. But, is that just a tactful of way of saying that such films aren’t any good? Certainly the reviews for Travolta’s film have been mixed to say the least: one critic dubbed it a “disaster”. And is it a coincidence that films directed by established actors are often seen at prestigious festivals like Cannes, and then rarely ever seen again?
It should be said that actors-turned-directors are some of the most successful film-makers in cinema history, from Charlie Chaplin to Clint Eastwood to today’s favourites, including Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele. But this is a different phenomenon. There are certain actors who reach a certain level of fame, and realise that they can get their quirky passion projects financed – or, if push comes to shove, they can finance those projects themselves. Even better, their films will be welcomed by festivals, however weird, ill-judged or, in Frémaux’s words, “unique” and “personal” they may be.
A classic example is Ryan Gosling’s Lost River, an exercise in David Lynch-ish surrealism, which premiered in Cannes in 2014. I quite respected its oddness, but not many other people did – and Gosling has never directed since. More recently, Chris Pine directed, produced, co-wrote and starred in Poolman, a hippy detective yarn which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023 and earned terrible reviews, before sinking without trace.
Apple TVTravolta’s film is in that category. He has been a Hollywood star for 50 years, so the fact that he has waited until now to direct, at the age of 72, suggests it wasn’t always a burning ambition. Another sign that his film was never destined to be a box-office smash is its impossible-to-remember title. And then there’s the autobiographical story – if “story” isn’t an exaggeration – in which an eight-year-old boy takes a flight across the US with his mother in 1962, stopping off at various cities along the way.
Why festivals can’t resist indulging stars
A sincere piece of nostalgia, Propeller One-Way Night Coach has enough in it to make a pleasant after-dinner anecdote, or a heartwarming newspaper column. In 1997, Travolta wrote it up as a children’s novel. But he doesn’t seem convinced that his trifling reminiscence is feature-film material. The running time is just 61 minutes – and he uses his own non-stop voiceover to describe what’s happening, rather than working up any dramatic scenes.
But Propeller One-Way Night Coach was apparently the first film to be selected for this year’s Cannes. Did Frémaux really love it at that much? Well, bear in mind that Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, premiered at Cannes last year, to very little acclaim. (Two other actors-turned-directors, Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson, got slightly better responses to their debuts last year.) Bear in mind, too, that Kevin Costner, having not directed a film in more than two decades, made a self-financed two-part western, which opened at two major festivals in 2024. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 was at Cannes in May, and Chapter 2 was at Venice in September. They were so dreary that Chapter 2 wasn’t even given a cinema release.
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Festivals can’t resist this sort of film, it seems, however self-indulgent it might be. But you can see the logic. The festival itself gets a flash of Hollywood glamour on its red carpet – especially welcome at this year’s Cannes, when there are so few big US films in the line-up. For the cinephiles who flock to festivals, it can be fascinating to see acting icons express themselves so candidly and vulnerably: it’s like reading their poetry or looking at their paintings, so the very amateurishness of the results can be endearing.
And the would-be auteurs themselves get the ego-boost of a lifetime. Before Propeller One-Way Night Coach was screened, Travolta received four separate standing ovations, a celebratory career-spanning montage, and an honorary Palme d’Or, which he said was “beyond the Oscar”.
Everyone’s a winner… although an honorary Palme d’Or might be the only award that Travolta will be winning any time soon.
Propeller One-Way Night Coach will be released globally on Apple TV on May 29
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