In “Trip of Die,” issues go sideways for its highway trippers in a rush. Paula and Sloane are barely out of St. Louis once they want a tow. The truck driver arrives with a twang. He’s unsavory and too leering for consolation. Issues aren’t helped any that minutes earlier, Paula had seen one thing swinging from a tree on this stretch of rural blacktop.

It’s most likely not truthful to match movies that put two girls on the highway and underneath duress to the 1991 basic “Thelma & Louise,” however when that on-the-lam duo drove off a cliff and into icon standing, the movie all however assured ghostly sightings. A current descendent was Kitty Inexperienced’s “The Royal Lodge,” which despatched two backpacking mates — a sensible one and an impulsive one — into the Australian outback to work at a pub the place sexual menace infuses the arid air.  

Now, there’s Josalynn Smith’s debut function, “Trip or Die,” premiering at Tribeca. Produced by Jamie Foxx’s manufacturing firm, Foxxhole, the drama — or because it’s been described the “anti-romantic/thriller” or the queer “Thelma & Louise” — has flaws, but in addition suggests a younger director intrigued by concepts, snug with understatement and comfortable with actors. Briana Middleton as Paula, a cautious soul with cropped curly hair, and Stella Everett as Sloane, whose wild little one has clearly been formed by trauma, give dynamic performances. Their turns are bolstered by Arlene Muller’s in-their-faces cinematography and Olivia Eliseo’s enhancing.

The main pair meet at a classic clothes retailer of their hometown of St. Louis. Or moderately, they meet once more. Paula and Sloane went to the identical highschool. Working the register, Sloane of the septum piercing caught round. Paula has returned from faculty again east and resides along with her mom and stepfather. An aspiring filmmaker, she desires of creating her solution to Los Angeles. Their vibe is sweetly pleasant and tentatively flirtatious, which is able to flip into one thing extra as they embark on an impulsive highway journey.

If that appears like a mildly private set-up for a debut function, Smith, who grew up in St. Louis and obtained her MFA at Columbia, has stated as a lot. And one of many sights of “Trip or Die,” written by Smith and Alicia Louzoun-Heisler, resides within the director’s nuanced data of her protagonists. She is aware of that nascent love will be messy and myopic. The pair will make silly selections, and viewers will possible marvel: would a woman like Paula actually do this for a multitude like Sloane? The director is aware of the reply is, “Yeah, she would.” There’s a deep craving and caring at work right here that’s the movie’s idiosyncratic energy, but in addition could also be its weak point, plausibility-wise.

Sure, these opposites entice however there’s extra to their dynamic. Paula is Black, middle-class and beloved by her mother, though she’s not understood, neither is her queerness honored. The church moors her household, even because it presses down on her pleasure and potentialities. Sloane hails from home upheaval. Although we by no means see her mom, an ill-timed telephone name has Sloane arguing along with her whereas sitting on the dinner desk at Paula’s residence. Paula’s mom (Eisa Davis), ever well mannered, seems suspicious and nervous.

She needs to be. Inside hours, the pair have hit the highway in Paula’s outdated and gold Wagoneer. There are subtly noticed moments by which Sloane’s whiteness, as compromised as her energy is on this planet, trumps Paula’s precise competence. A prickly confrontation with a down-and-out white girl in entrance of a comfort retailer sours their groove for a spell. {That a} scene quickly after finds the 2 canoodling at an arthouse exhibiting the right double invoice of “Daughters of the Mud” and “Killer of Sheep,” is quietly humorous — Sloane had simply been riffing about what a blast “Jennifer’s Physique” was — and perhaps a bit unhappy too.

Worry not, there’s pleasure and friskiness right here and a celebration of the kind of connection that looks like love, although it’ll absolutely appear to be insanity just a few years down the highway. Actor Guinevere Turner, who has a storied historical past with queer cinema having made her debut in “Go Fish,” slings drinks and tales at a woman bar within the mountain west the place Paula truly will get a meet cute. A magnificence bellies up for her regular, all smiles and shares the key handshake of these raised within the Black church: “God is Good.” Paula doesn’t miss a beat. It’s a bit Black magic in a movie reckoning with one thing else.

That Sloane has a father in Arizona comes as a teasing subplot earlier than it turns into a full-blown vacation spot. The film returns to the place it had begun so provocatively with the pair out within the desert and Paula asking in voice-over, “How do you express regret?”