The Roads Not Taken

With The Party (2018) and now The Roads Not Taken, writer/director Sally Potter (Orlando) is starting to specialize in brief, theatrical films that attract fairly big-name actors — and ultimately fail to capitalize on the assembled talent.

Her latest experiment stars Javier Bardem as Leo, an immigrant having somewhat of an identity crisis that takes the form of triune 24-hour storylines, representing the main logical paths his life could have taken.

Depicted through often distracting, handheld camerawork, Leo is shown as a stroke-addled man, struggling around New York City with his adult daughter Molly (Elle Fanning) and occasionally babbling about the lost love of his life; a married man not wanting to go to Day of the Dead services with his longtime wife Dolores (Salma Hayek); and a writer at his favorite Greek seaside bar, talking with a beautiful young woman (Milena Tscharntke) who reminds him of the daughter he left some 20 years earlier.

While the Dolores arc is barely developed until close to the end, when it becomes achingly clear why this part has been obscured, the three sections intersect in interesting ways that keep The Roads Not Taken moving sufficiently well. And even if the narrative is a bit confusing at times, the mystery is strong enough to inspire various theories regarding what’s actually happening, and Potter sustains viewers’ faith that it'll all eventually tie together.

Though it’s difficult to see Bardem repetitiously battling his condition in the NYC chapter, the other two strands provide more opportunities for his dramatic gifts to shine. Hayek, Tscharntke, and Fanning — generally believable as the daughter of Bardem and Laura Linney’s Rita — offer fairly strong support, though Bardem is typically ample on his own and makes the three Leos feel like distinct people.

The performances are especially crucial considering Potter’s dorm-room philosophizing, in which she suggests that it’s impossible for an artist to have love, parenthood, and a career, all balanced and developed to successful degrees. Thanks to these faux profundities, as with her previous (just barely a) feature, The Roads Not Taken plays out more like an interesting film school project from a promising talent than a polished work from an established filmmaker.

Grade: B-minus. Rated R. Now available to rent from the Fine Arts Theatre

(Photo: Bleecker Street)