Walk Away Renee

It's Jonathan Caouette's insistence in going back to his nightmarish old footage, or the old footage that he purposefully renders nightmarish, that seems more interesting.

Picking up where his 2003 "Tarnation" left off, Jonathan Caouette's new documentary is no less hermetic, autobiographical, messy, and ultimately touching.

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.

Ultimately, "Renee" feels less like a walk away than a retread.

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.