The Roads Not Tak­en – first look review

Pros­trate and with eyes wide open, Leo (Javier Bar­dem) lies on the bed in his dilap­i­dat­ed New York City apart­ment. Trains rum­ble past his win­dow, cut­ting through the inner-city thrum. Leo ignores a door buzzer and the per­sis­tent trill of a tele­phone. His daugh­ter Mol­ly (Elle Fan­ning) bursts into the apart­ment in a state of pan­ic. It quick­ly becomes clear that Leo is not well, though we nev­er find out what is it that is ail­ing him.

The last time Sal­ly Pot­ter had a film in com­pe­ti­tion at the Berlin Film Fes­ti­val, 2017’s The Par­ty, she walked away with the Guild Film Prize. Don’t expect a sim­i­lar out­come from her 16^th fea­ture though – The Roads Not Tak­en is a flat, faint whim­per of a film that paws des­per­ate­ly at pro­fun­di­ty but falls some way short.

Across a sin­gle day, Mol­ly drags her father to a series of appoint­ments. A trip to the den­tist and an optometrist are mun­dane rit­u­als which Leo appears utter­ly con­fused by. Slack-jawed and stooped, this one-time writer is now unable to dress him­self or artic­u­late his thoughts. He mere­ly shuf­fles along, lost in the fog of his mem­o­ries. It’s from his addled state of mind that new shapes form: he skips over his time with his ex-wife, Rita (Lau­ra Lin­ney); his first love, Dolores (Salma Hayek) – a rela­tion­ship he once regard­ed as a ​“co-depen­dent dis­as­ter”; and to a solo trip he took to Greece, where he intend­ed to fin­ish a novel.

But what of Leo’s present state? Has emo­tion­al trau­ma ren­dered him with­out capac­i­ty? Is this demen­tia? The result of a head injury? The only clue pro­vid­ed by Pot­ter – ​“frontal lobe atro­phy” – is unsat­is­fy­ing. Leo’s inde­ci­pher­able mum­blings stretch to the word ​‘Nestor’, which becomes Potter’s very own ​‘Rose­bud’. This is one cin­e­mat­ic jig­saw that will test your patience to break­ing point, as the direc­tor con­ceals her cards for too long, leav­ing the view­er locked out in the freez­ing cold.

The appear­ance of Lin­ney at least injects a shot of ener­gy into pro­ceed­ings, but her pres­ence is fleet­ing. Bar­dem, so often cap­ti­vat­ing, is guilty of flame-fry­ing his per­for­mance to a cin­der. Else­where, Fan­ning man­ages well enough in a one-note role, while Hayek makes a decent fist of her lim­it­ed time on screen.

Potter’s ambi­tious film may sound intrigu­ing on paper – after all, we all affect­ed to some degree by the events of our past – but the exe­cu­tion is sore­ly lack­ing. Although she gath­ers up some of her scat­tered nar­ra­tive sticks come the clos­ing moments, it’s sad­ly a ques­tion of too lit­tle, too late. The Roads Not Tak­en may deal in hal­lu­ci­na­tions, but it’s cer­tain­ly not the stuff of dreams.