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.

If you like your movies action packed you are going to dislike this movie. If you like light and uplifting stories you are going to positively loathe this one! For everyone else, "The Roads Not Taken" is a very thought-provoking piece of film-making from writer/director Sally Potter that I have a lot of respect for. Even more so, since I learned that the film is based on the director's time caring for her now deceased brother Nic, diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2010.

It's not a promising premise. "The Roads Not Taken" concerns a New Yorker with dementia being taking to the dentist and the opticians. Gripped yet? Nope... didn't think so. But stay with me here.

Elle Fanning plays Molly, daughter of the almost catatonic Leo (Javier Bardem) who is receiving a lot of support to stay in his own home. As his daughter assists him on his trip to his medical appointments, he is only about 10% 'there'. Glassy-eyed and almost incomprehensible, his utterances are often taken to refer to his present experiences. But actually, he's 90% somewhere else, revisiting two key episodes in his past life and reacting in the real world to what's happening in his dreams.

As he relives 'the roads not taken' we can piece together the elements of a life that's lived and - perhaps - lay out some elements that might have contributed to his mental decline in later life.

Before we plunge into the doom and gloom of the story, there was one moment of levity for me in the opening titles. I commented in my review of "The Farewell" that the company 'dog-tags' at the start of the film reminded me of a famous Family Guy comic moment. But this is kindergarten level compared to this movie. I assume Sally Potter must have tapped her complete phone contacts list to raise the funding for this one! Since I counted FOURTEEN different production companies referenced! Is this a record?

As you enter later life, it's common for many of us to suffer a significant source of stress. Sometimes - if you're lucky - four sources of stress. The reason? You stop worrying about your kids as much and start worrying about your aged parents and in-laws. Like heating up a frog in water, it's often imperceptible how much stress you are actually carrying with that until the last of the relatives 'shuffles off this mortal coil'. Within the grief, there's also a source of guilty relief in there somewhere. Such is the maelstrom that young Molly is in - with knobs on - given the disability of Leo. As a professional in her 20's, she is also having the juggle this responsibility with progressing her career.

It's a bit early in this turbulent year to talk of Oscar nominations. But for me, there are three standout performances in this movie:

1) Javier Bardem: what an acting masterclass! As with Daniel Day-Lewis's win in 1990 for "My Left Foot", the Academy loves a disability-based performance. I haven't seen much Oscar-buzz about this performance, but I'd personally throw his hat into the ring, for at least my long-list;

2) Elle Fanning: this young lady has been in movies since the age of 2, but rose to stardom with "Super 8". She's building a formidable filmography behind her. Here she matches Bardem shot-for-shot in the acting stakes: a caring daughter being emotionally torn apart; always needing to be in two places at the same time (as nicely positioned by the cryptic ending). A first Oscar-nomination perhaps?

3) Robbie Ryan: with an Oscar-nom previously for "The Favourite", could another one follow for this? For this is a beautiful film to look at, despite its downbeat story. There are some drop-dead gorgeous shots. One in particular is where a sun-lit Fanning has a "Marilyn Monroe subway skirt moment" at a window (with her hair being blown, I should add). Glorious. And all of the Mexican/Greek scenes (all Spain I believe) are deliciously lit and coloured.

"The Roads Not Taken" is an intelligent watch for sure, and reminiscent to me of Almodovar's "Pain and Glory": another artist's life lived again in flashback. If anything, this one is more unstructured in setting out a box of jigsaw pieces that you need to piece together through the unreliable narrator's random memories. ("Ooh, look - here's a bit with Laura Linney on it... ah, that goes there"; "So that's who Selma Hayek is"; etc.) But, as with a jigsaw, staying the course and putting the last pieces in is a very satisfying experience.

There's also a really feelgood scene in a taxi rank that restores your faith in the underlying goodness of people.... and a rant by a "Trump-voter" that gives you quite the opposite view!

Where I found some frustration was in the lack of backstory for Molly. She seems to be painted rather two-dimensionally. Yes - young with job, but of her personal life we see nothing. Adding another dimension (a young family for example) would have added yet another set of stresses to the mix. Leo's flashbacks are also focused on just two time periods. More wide-ranging reminiscences might have broadened the drama.

But I personally found "The Roads Not Taken" intensely moving. I'm not sure I could say I "enjoyed" it, but it is a worthy watch and has left me with thought-provoking images to chew on.

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Sadly, three errors undermine the reality of this film which otherwise had great pathos.The first glaring error was when the opthalmologist became frustrated with Bardem who understandably because of his condition/illness could not understand or take instruction as a normal person, the error being that his daughter clearly did not explain before the exam that her father had dementia as shown by the opthalmologist asking her if her father was 'all there'. How could a caring person (the daughter) not warn anyone dealing with a parent with dementia be so unthinking as to not do this? The second error is a repeat of this, when in the clothes warehouse the security guard tackles Bardem to the floor and all the daughter can say is 'my father is confused'. That doesn't help her father or those dealing with his unusual behaviour--anyone with a bit of sense would make it abundantly clear that Bardem was suffering from dementia, so that others would then treat him more sensitively. The third error concerns the daughter repeatedly excusing herself from an important meeting at her work which involved an important project she had undertaken. It seems that because she didn't make it into work that day, someone else or their work was chosen above her(s). At no point does she explain the truth about why she couldn't get into work ie that she was having to deal with her very ill father; instead she gave mumbled, ineffectual excuses which most likely sounded very lame to her boss or whoever was calling her from her work. Why the hell wouldn't she convey the gravity of her situation when she might then get some understanding and sympathy from her workplace? These are clearly errors in the script, odd that neither the director nor anyone else picked up on them. For em there were jarring, unrealistic moments in the film which accordingly undermined its plausibility.

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.

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.