Right off the bat, a new movie written and directed by Sally Potter does not take it easy on the viewer. It opens with plain white-on-black titles followed by the sight of Javier Bardem in a bed, in a barely furnished apartment. He lies alone, staring at the ceiling, grunting and mumbling. His guttural utterances are sometimes more frightening than pitiful.

What is ailing this man? It’s never revealed. Later in the movie, when Bardem’s character Leo has been examined by a doctor after a fall, the practitioner tells Leo’s daughter (Elle Fanning; her character’s name is not shared until almost the very end of the movie, but is done pointedly) that the resulting cut is not serious. But he then expresses concern for Leo’s “underlying condition.” Whatever it is, it is making life impossible both for him and his daughter, whose devotion seems to know no bounds.

“The Roads Not Taken” shows a day in the life of this Leo — and of two others. The incapacitated Leo who’s exiled himself in a tatty Brooklyn flat is tormented by visions of his other potential lives. In one, he lives in Mexico with his first love, Dolores. In another, he lives on a Greek island where he smokes, drinks, writes a bit and flirts with women a third of his age.