the times | Friday September 11 2020 1GT 7
The Roads Not
Taken
15, 85min
{{(((Javier Bardem as Leo and Salma Hayek as Dolores in Sally Potter’s disappointing new film, The Roads Not Taken
Javier Bardem and
Salma Hayek can’t
save this glum,
humourless,
hopeless film,
says Kevin Maher
This is not the road to cinema’s revival
T
hree roads diverged in
a yellow wood, and
they were all rubbish.
This is the moribund
sentiment that fuels
the latest directorial
opus from Sally Potter,
her most structurally
audacious film since Orlando and, alas,
also her most emotionally alienating.
Fans of her previous movie, the light
and supremely witty The Party, will be
sorely disappointed by this retreat into
overdone experimentalism, depicting a
day in the life of tortured writer Leo,
played by Javier Bardem at his most
unselfconscious (huge chunks of the
film require him to do little more than
grunt the word “Ugh!”).
It’s actually three days in the life of
Leo, or three Leos, intercut together.
The first Leo is Brooklyn based and
housebound by early onset dementia
(Potter’s younger brother suffered
from the same, and the film is partially
inspired by her own observations).
Fearful, reluctant and incoherent,
Leo is taken by his loving and
attentive daughter Molly (Elle
Fanning) on a grimly difficult day
trip to see the dentist and the
ophthalmologist, with a brief layover
in the hospital emergency room after
he takes an impulsive dive out of a
moving New York taxi.
Leo, it transpires, is trouble. He’s
a groaning, moaning, all stumbling,
all shuffling, pant-wetting (yep, he’s
incontinent too) nightmare who, if
he’s not careful, is going to get Mollyfired. She’s a journalist, with a big
interview scheduled on a day that’s
slowly spiralling out of control.
The second Leo lives in Mexico and
is also self-tortured and moans a lot,
but appears to be free from (any visible
signs of) brain disease. He spends that
day arguing with his tearful, depressed,
grief-stricken wife, Dolores (Salma
Hayek), about whether or not he’s
going to accompany her to a Day of
the Dead ceremony.
The third Leo, meanwhile, is found
on a remote Greek island, struggling
with writer’s block and creepily
stalking a couple of beautiful young
tourists and dazzling them with
knockout chat-up lines such as: “In my
story a man sets off on a long voyage
and overcomes one obstacle after
another until he ends up home on an
island!” One of the girls, who clearly
doesn’t know her Homer, replies,
intrigued: “And?”
And that’s it. That’s the film. Three
different Javier Bardems moaning
solidly, sometimes crying, andstruggling to write, for 85 minutes.
However, the critical mistake that
early viewers of the film have made
(it was screened at the Berlin Film
Festival in February), and one that
has since become the dominant
interpretation, is that the Mexican and
Greek sections of the film are merely
flashbacks in the addled mind of the
Brooklyn Leo.
Potter, however, has much grander
designs for her narrative. She has
confirmed that the film, taking its
cue from Robert Frost, is actually
about alternate life journeys and
multiple realities.
Leo leaps across the multiverse,
bouncing between Brooklyn, Mexico
and Greece with pinpoint precision.
A shaft of sunlight, for instance, lands
on his face through the window of a
New York taxi and, cut, he’s standing
on the terrace of a Greek restaurant,
eyes shut, feeling the same sun in
a different reality. He turns to the
restaurant owner and asks for a
cigarette by making the universaltwo-fingers-touching-lips gesture
and, cut, we’re back in a Brooklyn
dentist’s office where this Leo is
making the same sign. Elsewhere his
leap out of that New York taxi began
in a car in the Mexico sequence, and
when he falls over in Brooklyn, he
hurts his head in Greece.
It sounds impressive, and is certainly
one of the most deliberately written
films you’ll see all year. But then why
is it such a drag? It has nothing to
offer an audience other than the cute
structural jumps.
All three Leos are miserable, their
lives are miserable, their roads
diverged, and they found nothing but
pain, decrepitude and the ultimate
onslaught of hopeless death. There
may be a certain inalienable truth to
this, but its glum humourlessness
murders any sense of connection with
the drama. Even Samuel Beckett, who
mined the same material, was funny.
But all we get here is arch solemnity
and regret. Three times over.
On selected release in cinemasthe big film
Will Hodgkinson
thinks the Flaming Lips are hot p
James Marriott
adores Alan Partridge’s podcast p
Carol Midgley
applauds the Black Full Monty p
THE
CRITICS
Shadowy streets, sultry singers,
mysterious henchmen on midnight
trains and gorgeous, inky, black-and-
white frames. No, it’s not another film
noir classic, it’s better than that. Pawel
Pawlikowski’s triple Oscar-nominated
2018 drama was much praised but
little seen and is now certainly worthyFilm Club
Cold War
Kevin Maher introduces
Pawel Pawlikowski’s
exquisite Polish drama
of a second look. Joanna Kulig and
Tomasz Kot are indecently compelling
as Zula and Wiktor, troubled lovers in
a repressive communist Poland whose
fractious relationship — based on that
of Pawlikowski’s parents — spans
decades of postwar uncertainty and
political paranoia. It’s mesmerising to
look at — a shot in a Parisian garret is
especially breathtaking. The emotional
power is undeniable too, the final
sequence devastating.
On Amazon, Apple, Google and SkyWhat did you think of Cold War?
Join Kevin Maher for a live chat
about the film on Monday,
September 14, from noon to 1.30pm.
If you would like to submit your
thoughts in advance, please post
them in the comment section below
Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig the feature at thetimes.co.uk/arts