FREE FILM SCREENING: The Roads Not Taken (2020)

Sally Potter’s Berlinale-premiering feature criss-crosses the world in the company of Javier Bardem, a man struggling to keep sane.

Dir: Sally Potter Stars: Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning, Laura Linney Run Time: 85mins Country: UK / Swe / US / Pol / Spa Cert: 15

The wonderful British filmmaker Sally Potter (Orlando, The Tango Lesson) takes a look at the devastating effects of mental illness in this kaleidoscopic drama that twists together three different versions of a life, across three different locations. In New York, Molly (Elle Fanning) struggles to look after her father Leo (Javier Bardem), whose health is failing fast. In Mexico, a younger Leo experiences the Day of the Dead with his wife Dolores (Salma Hayek), forcing him to remember the loss of his son. While in Greece, Leo hangs out at his friend’s bar where he meets a German tourist and ends up pursuing her in a rowboat and getting lost at sea.

This chaotic collection of encounters may, or may not, be the failings of a worn out and diseased mind. Potter imaginatively leaps across time and space in pursuit of that ephemeral thing that is human memory. Featuring strong performances from Bardem and Fanning, the film premiered at Berlinale 2020, but its theatrical release in the UK was disrupted by Covid, making this its first cinema screening in Edinburgh.

BOOK: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gcph-screening-the-roads-not-taken-2020-tickets-153351559643

NOTE: Bad language, themes of mental illness