Walk Away Renee
Tarnation director Jonathan Caouette takes his mentally-ill mother Renee on a cross-country journey to her new home, and reflects on their unusual mother/son relationship while contending with a series of unexpected obstacles.
Director: Jonathan Caouette
Starring: Kathy Biehl,Jonathan Caouette, Joshua Caouette, Adolph Davis, Gasner Demosthenes
The way forward, both in Caouette's real-life situation and his development as an artist, remains unclear, yet that frustration makes it to the screen, in spiky waves that signal a vital personal quest.
Picking up where his 2003 "Tarnation" left off, Jonathan Caouette's new documentary is no less hermetic, autobiographical, messy, and ultimately touching.
Walk Away Renee lets us observe a mother-son bond, but Mr. Caouette hasn't found a way to galvanize this incarnation of material for strangers.
It's problematic, however, that we learn very little here that wasn't more stirringly conveyed in the earlier film. In its mesmerizing, propulsive drive, "Tarnation" was a heartfelt scramble to make sense of messy lives. Walk Away Renee is an occasionally illuminating patchwork.
The extra money has bought a professional crew for scripted sequences, in which Jonathan and his mother too often mug for the camera.
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