![]() ![]() Where has Leo gone? Into the other lives that he might have lived had he never emigrated from Mexico to New York, or had he returned home after having Molly and pursued a solitary existence as a writer. But Potter is determined to fracture her movie even further from there and develop it into a strained, time-hopping tale about - well - the roads not taken. At first, she captures the inner tension of loving someone in that state - the heartbreaking friction between presence and absence. Potter, an idiosyncratic British filmmaker (“Orlando,” “Yes”) who seems to have rediscovered an urgent creative purpose in her 60s, draws from her personal experience of caring for her younger brother as he died from early onset Alzheimer’s. 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' and 'Nope' Lead Early Best Original Screenplay Contenders Oscars 2023: Best Original Screenplay Predictions 'American Rapstar' Review: SoundCloud Doc Takes on Hip-Hop's Cautionary Tales Like Lil Peep and XXXTentacion 'Sell/Buy/Date' Review: A Confused Anti Sex Work Documentary from EP Meryl Streep The shell is still there, mumbling and walking and pissing itself in public, but the ghost has gone AWOL. ![]() On the contrary, this curious and heartfelt dirge of a movie hinges on the magical thinking that Leo has actually left his body, and that nobody knows where he went. That might sound like a rhetorical question, but Sally Potter’s “ The Roads not Taken” doesn’t frame it like one. And the inevitable, exasperated reply is one of those lines that you can hear in your head before it’s even spoken: “Is he?” “Why does everyone always refer to dad as if he’s not here?,” Molly asks her mom. The cab drivers are nice enough, but the dentist, the eye doctor, and even Leo’s ex-wife (Laura Linney) talk to him as if he’s nothing more than his tragically premature condition. Molly (Elle Fanning) is sick of the way that people tend to dehumanize her dad (Javier Bardem), as soon as they realize that he suffers from some kind of advanced dementia. Bleecker Street releases the film on Friday, March 13. Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival. ![]()
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