Johnny Berlin (2005)

• 86%
• 2005
• Documentary
• Dominic DeJoseph

Simultaneously funny and dark, this documentary follows Jon Hyrns, a porter aboard a refurbished 1930s luxury train. Passengers on the Seattle to L.A. trip know him as "Johnny Berlin" - the man responsible for making their beds and cleaning their toilets. We get to know him differently - as a middle-aged, struggling writer with a workaday job and as many dreams as he has beds to clean. Boyishly charming and with many stories to tell, Johnny takes us on a trip through his life. He's a true wanderer, a man without a home base, whose only plan is to spend his savings on a trip to Cambodia to write his long-gestating novel. The film is ultimately an intimate, offbeat, and humorous portrait of mid-life crisis presented as a traveling monologue.