Remake
Director: Ross McElwee Run Time: 116 min. Release Year: 2026
Starring: Adrian McElwee, Charleen Swansea, Ross McElwee
The death of his son causes Ross McElwee, an autobiographical filmmaker, to look back on his life’s work. He eventually turns to his archive of home movies. To what extent did his camera affect their relationship when Adrian was alive? To what extent does it define that relationship now that he is gone? Meanwhile, an effort to adapt McElwee’s first feature, Sherman’s March, into a work of fiction lurches along, giving the filmmaker another perspective from which to meditate on movie making and mortality.
“As the camera turns from father to son and back again, “heartbreaking” becomes too flat a word to describe this contemplative film. In fact, part of the honesty of ‘Remake’ is accepting that words and images often come up short in capturing the moment. And, similar to other recent personal films, like ‘Blue Heron’ and ‘Romeria,’ McElwee’s documentary readily accepts that a movie alone cannot fill the void left by loss or redo the many decisions made along the way. It can only ease the lived present by revisiting the recorded past, allowing time to stop, kindly but briefly.” ~ Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com