High Road

High Road is a 2011 American improvised comedy film directed by Matt Walsh, who co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Weiner. The film surrounds a young man whose loyalties are torn between his band, girlfriend, and dealing weed. Attempting to elude arrest after a drug bust, he is accompanied by his teenage runaway neighbor. It stars James Pumphrey, Abby Elliott, Dylan O'Brien, and Rob Riggle. It also premiered at the 2011 Newport Beach Film Festival, where for Matt Walsh's directing, it won an honor for Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking. Plot The comedy centers on Glen "Fitz" Fitzgerald (James Pumphrey), a young man, marijuana dealer, and former rock band drummer living in Los Angeles, California. His best friends dropped out of the band, Torigl, three months prior, causing the group to part and him to fall back on selling weed in his garage. He dates Monica (Abby Elliott), who works at a news company, and hangs out with his rebellious teen neighbor, Jimmy (Dylan O'Brien), who skips school. Fitz also believes in the "triangle theory", where everything in the world can connect in group of threes (a joke ran throughout the film). One day, after Fitz is nearly arrested in a weed bust of one of his clients, he leaves his girlfriend behind and flees to temporarily stay in Oakland, California to avoid arrest. Jimmy convinces him to join his trip so he can visit his mother there, as his father James Malone Sr (Rob Riggle) plans to send him to military school for missing and failing classes. Mistaken for a kidnap, James gets help from a police academy graduate and ally, Officer Fogerty (Joe Lo Truglio), setting out in search for his son through their own investigation. Along the way, Jimmy attempts to keep Fitz sober, preventing Fitz from smoking. They also plot and successfully switch cars to derail the cops from tracking them by trading vehicles with Fitz's ex-band mates Sheila (Lizzy Caplan) and Richie (Matt L. Jones), who have since become a tribute band in Bakersfield, California. Monica has become pregnant with Fitz's child, but encounters a brief affair with her married boss, Barry (Ed Helms), the latter which she informs Fitz about. Upset Fitz left her behind, she pursues his trail. In the other pursuit, James and Officer Fogerty eventually tracks and catches up to Fitz and Jimmy, who had slept overnight in their van after visiting a diner. They are nearly captured, but Jimmy deflates their car tire and escapes with Fitz.