Finding yourself at home (Straight Story)
The road within this movie functions really clearly as a symbolism for Straight's internal changes. He is on the road, but not to to seek out something new, and not to find new adventures and not because he does not like the place he is in life. He goes on the road in order to reclaim his place in life, in order to understand it, and to really accept who he is. Most of out other stories involve people leaving their usual places, leaving their "comfort zones" even though they may not be comfortable there and finding change and difference in the world. The road that Straight follows never changes. It's always corn in the background, always semi trucks cruising by, it's small towns with normal people and good people. The narrative does not relish change or differences, but explores the sameness of the world around him, so that we truly see who Straight is, without distractions from the road.
The narrative of the movie is just of an old man who needs to rediscover himself and his bonds. He does have a good relationship with his daughter, but he is out to fix the things that went wrong with in his relationship with his brother. Straight is not trying to meet new people, though he does accept the friendships that come along. He is also not trying to find a new place, but going home, to his brother's home. This gets portrayed in the film by constancy of the scenery. He is taking a slow, very slow ride through the same corn fields and the same towns. Everytime he hits a town, it is not a special town or any place really noteworthy, just a stop along the way. So the road he is traveling really exemplifies the inner path that he is taking: it is 6 weeks of going through the same places.
This movie really constrasts with movies like Thelma and Louise, Easy Rider and Vagabond, among others. These movies focus on the scenery in order to highlight how it changes and how it is different as the protagonists move along. But a movie like Powwow Highway, or at least Philbert's journey within, seems to parallel Straight's story. Philbert travels through large parts of the U.S., but truly he is just travelling to sights that are important to his identity as a cheyenne. Its irrelevant that they are far apart, or that they are places where many different types of events happened, what matters is that Philbert is finding or at least expressing his identity through these places. In a story like Straight's, the lawn mower and the highway road are not representations of mobility, but in fact through their characterization (a lawn mower does not move fast, and the highway never seems to change at all), we get to see a man focusing on his internal healing and the bridging of his relationship with his brother.