The Roads Not Taken

The Roads Not Taken begins with a ringing phone over the opening credits. The credits are synced to the ringing. It took me years to get past the beginning of Once Upon a Time in America, beginning as it did with an incessantly ringing telephone. Every time I'd just throw my hands up and say not today, Sergio!

But eventually I got over that hump and was richly rewarded. Which is why I simply dug my fingernails into my palms and waited this one out. I'm glad I did. For whatever reason, there's always a good movie on the other side of an interminably ringing phone.

(It has a point, the ringing. It's thematic.)

The movie is hypnotically paced. Somewhere in the back of my mind I imagined myself glancing at my watch, stopping the film, and doing something else with my time. But I never glanced at my watch. Not once. OK, there was the one time I checked how much longer the film had to go, but not because I was bored -- it was because I was worried it would end too soon.

The performances are -- let me say this. It's not fantasy. I thought the premise (or at least my initial interpretation of the title) was going to go in more of a whimsical About Time-ish direction. Like this is a man who is experiencing a supernatural event in which he must choose which path to take. It's not that. It's very much a man with dementia existing in different places in his memories, envisioning different choices, while his daughter tries to connect with him in the present.

So the performances are brilliant. There was a moment in a cab early in the movie when I was afraid Sally Potter was going to do like what Terrence Malick did with those three little weird movies of his. You know the ones I mean. Where he just got his video camera and followed actors around. They were like, "So where's the script, Terry?" And he was like, "JUST DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, I'LL FIGURE IT OUT IN POST."

There's a bit in a Costco parking garage that's just perfect.

Lastly, I want to talk about the music. It's the best thing about the movie. I will be buying the soundtrack. I haven't bought a film soundtrack since The Mission.

Oh and one more thing, with regards to phones ringing in films -- there's a limit. It's two. Two rings! That's all you get! If you need more you gotta use silent film intertitles. Them's the rules.

Javier Bardem gives a terrific performance of a dementia patient, and Elle Fanning is really good as a daughter trying super hard to cope. It is a heart wrenching story, but the diversions are just very distracting. The subplot with Selma Hayek is just very confusing, I don't even know if it is a flashback or an alternate reality in the man's mind. Then the scenes involving the sea are confusing, and out of place as well. I don't really understand these parallel subplots.

I don't want to give the story away other than to mention that it is impossible to follow, too slow in many parts, and that this probably worked better in the writer's head. Good actors, but....

Not a typical everyday movie but has intense acting from the main characters. The screenplay was good in depicting the pain but not good in telling a great story that could have been told effortlessly

You know when you sometimes play a movie without knowing anything about it? Well, that's the chance I took with "The Roads Not Taken" and it was a real surprise movie for me. Some days you are driven by emotions rather than logic. And this is a story that won't give you all the full answers, but will present puzzle pieces that you can connect upon reflection. There are three narratives that the filmmakers intercut between. Leaving it up to the viewer to interpret wether what you are seeing are partly dreams or memories. Javier Bardem plays the main character, and that man never seizes to amaze me. The way he changes the body language, the way he expresses a glimpse of life in his eyes - It's like he is playing three different characters all together in the three narratives. It's a performance that stroke me to the core since it reminded me so much of my grandfather. In some scenes completely mimicking him, which brought so many memories back to me. I understood the dilemma of the film and what it wanted to give a beautiful perspective to - Which almost broke me emotionally at the end.

I've been there next to a person who's wandered off in his mind and returning to be present in fragments. I would find myself asking "Where did you go? Have you been with us all day?". The questions were always left unanswered. Director and writer Sally Potter offers with this film a view into that mind. Perhaps giving you some answers and in earnest, a sense of hope. Also, this is the best acting I've seen from Elle Fanning. She truly impressed me. Her scenes with Bardem brought tears to me eyes. There was a strong connection that was performed beautifully by everyone involved. I'm so glad I took that chance and watched this movie. It gave peace to some unhealed thoughts I had looming in the back of my mind.