Describe Dani Menkin’s new film, “Is That You?,” in one word, and that word might well be “ambitious,” or at least “shrewd.” Instead of just making a quirky road trip movie to delight crowds of twenty-something cinephiles, or a comically bittersweet “road not taken” picture to tickle moviegoers of advanced ages, Menkin made a road trip movie about the road not taken that is both comically bittersweet and quirky. (He also references the Robert Frost poem at every possible opportunity, in case the first reference is just too subtle.) Think of “Is That You?” as an inheritor of Alexander Payne and Richard Linklater, a film that meanders to the point and muses over it all along the way. It’s a ponderous work in every meaning of the term.
But it’s not necessarily unpleasant, either, just lethargic and stretched out; at a lean 81 minutes in length, “Is That You?” often feels about an hour longer than your average two hour feature. In filmmakers like Josephine Decker or Trey Edward Shults, that kind of chronological sleight of hand is dazzling. In Menkin’s, it’s just tedious. The film’s inconsistent pacing lurches between languid and brisk, which means we can count on reprieves from our boredom as often as we can expect our attention to strain. Weirdly, you may wish for more, not because dullness is engaging but because “more” might have given Menkin a better shot at developing his story and his characters. “More” might have been the caulk needed to seal the gaps in his plot. Or maybe “less” would have sufficed, too, at least as far as narrative economy goes.
Either way, “Is That You?” hits that rare category of “too much and not enough.” The film tells of Ronnie (Alon Aboutboul), an Israeli projectionist who, after being unceremoniously fired from his job, decides to up and leave for American shores in pursuit of his long-lost childhood flame, Rachel. Ronnie is sixty years old and filled with regret and angst over the life he might have had with Rachel if life had gone just a little differently, if he’d zigged rather than zagged, if he’d taken, well, let’s just circle back around to that Frost poem. You get the idea. Menkin dives deep into “sad old man” territory, and Aboutboul takes the plunge with him. He scarcely cracks more than a handful of smiles through the film’s runtime, and most of those are saved for the end.
But Ronnie’s solemnity is well-earned and makes logical sense. Aboutboul’s hangdog melancholy works. Menkin’s insistence on sharing the wealth of Ronnie’s ennui to every ancillary character he meets as he drives all over creation to find Rachel doesn’t. It’s not that Menkin’s instinct for human sorrow is out of whack, it’s that capturing those feelings often feels artificial.
Over the course of the film, Ronnie is befriended by Myla (Naruna Kaplan de Macedo), a student making a documentary film composed of interviews with strangers; she asks each of them about regret, records their response, takes snapshots of their best “prettiest” and “ugliest” faces, and moves on. Myla’s documentary is more appealing as a concept than “Is That You?” is as an actual film, and that’s the first strike against Menkin. The second is Myla herself, written on the page as nothing more than a plot device. She’s Zooey Deschanel in duplicate, the Manic Pixie Dream Daughter. Admittedly, that’s a big step up from the alternative; Menkin, in keeping with the Frost motif, diverges from the road in which Ronnie and Myla get romantic, allowing them no more than a platonic cuddle session after she spills her guts to him about her crummy relationship with her father. If only we knew her well enough to care. Myla is better developed than any supporting player Ronnie encounters on his journey, but “Is That You?” doesn’t invest us enough in who she is as a person before her big cathartic moment with Ronnie. Instead, she’s kept as a bundle of tropes, a feisty, willful, spirited, but ultimately vulnerable woman who needs reassurance and a dose of paternal guidance. Once she’s given both, she exits stage left and remains out of sight until “Is That You?” comes to a close, which is as clear a sign of her vitality to the film as any.
Ronnie is the only constant here, and as such so is Aboutboul, seen earlier this year in “London Has Fallen.” That’s a pretty inadequate yardstick used to measure any actor’s career, so let’s use “Is That You?” for assessing Aboutboul as a performer, if not because “London Has Fallen” is a terrible film, then because “Is That You?” actually allows Aboutboul to perform. He is, without a doubt, the movie’s best component, one-note at a glance but adept with nuances that he uses to layer Ronnie with a calming, amicable warmth beneath his lovelorn exterior. When he expresses his grief at missing out on a life with Rachel, we interpret his expressions as authentic. They’re saddled with hallmarks of truth. Each talking head interview Myla shoots with her subjects, by contrast, feels utterly fake, verging on self-satire.
That fakeness clangs audibly against Aboutboul’s honesty, and effectively undermines “Is That You?” as a whole. It’s a fine idea, and maybe somebody will turn Myla’s movie into a real movie, or maybe “Is That You?” should have been that movie. The movie it is, at least, gives Aboutboul a well-deserved showcase, but the problem isn’t Aboutboul. Menkin can’t bring himself to follow any of the picture’s many roads to the end. He’s too stuck on the road half traveled by. [C]