Route One / USA

In 1988, after years living abroad, renegade filmmaker Robert Kramer returns. “Back,” he emphasizes. Not “home.” To try to understand the country as it is, he decides to travel the entire length of Route 1, from the Canadian border to Key West, filming all the way. His companion on the trip is Doc—ostensibly Kramer’s friend, a brooding physician back after a harrowing decade working in Africa. But in fact, he’s a fictional character played by actor Paul McIsaac, a compassionate man who readily engages those he meets, from business owners, to factory workers and to army recruits.