The Roads Not Taken

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....

The story gives a face to dementia, a terrible illness. Here, we see Leo lost in his remembrances of the past in seemingly disjointed episodes. At one point, in his present, he says to Molly: wherever I go, I am there. This might be trite to a normal person but so profound to a man who's on the path of losing his mind. This is tragic because memories are one's truest treasures. What would our lives amount to without them to soothe us and talk to us.

The story also focuses on the indispensable role of the caregiver, preferably a close kin who patiently tries to see the world in the eyes of a beloved suffering from dementia. Elle Fanning portrays this role admirably without doubt.

Javier Bardem is such a versatile actor that not one scene in this movie is wasted. Selma Hayek provides a counterpoint playing a role at at time when Leo was a lot younger full of fire in his belly. She was the calming presence in younger Leo's troubled life.

This is a great work of writer/director Sally Potter. She's able to present the story in an understated albeit powerful way. We take notice.

Contrary to many negative reviews published by various critics of world renown, watching Sally Potter's latest feature "The Roads Not Taken", with its name borrowed from a Robert Frost poem of relevant nature, struck me deep to my soul's core. As a person currently dealing with and witnessing a loved one go through dementia, I daresay this portrayal of a life fallen apart and the performances delivered by the actors could not have been more realistic and convincing.

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.