There's a tension at the heart of Wim Wenders' road movie that feels unresolved, as if it's created by two minds. The first two-thirds of the movie are mysterious, touching, and a bit frivolous in a way that foreshadowed some of the inane twee of the 90s indie films.

The story is roughly divded in three parts. In the first, we're introduced to Travis, wonderfully played by Harry Dean Stanton, who has been missing for four years, but has now been found in the Texas desert by a quirky German doctor. His brother Walter (Dean Stockwell) flies out from LA immediately, and what follows is a low-key combination of emotional reconciliation between the two and comedic bits as Travis readjusts to things like showers and sitting in a car. But as we quickly learn, Travis also has a son named Hunter that both he and the mother (played by Natassja Kinski) seemingly abanoned at some point, and for the last four years Walter and his wife have raised him as their own son. This then leads into the second part of the film, which is Travis back in LA, staying with his brother, wife, and son, learning to be a person and a father again. Wenders keeps things fairly light, but there's a bristling undercurrent of sadness, with Stanton mixing warmth and fraught stoicism as he tries to keep himself from falling apart (or running away again).

Eventually, Travis decides to find his former partner and Hunter's mother, because after all, a kid should have his mother. He decides to take Hunter with him on this road trip back to Texas where she supposedly is, and honestly, you could write an entire essay about Wenders' peculiar notions of child welfare, but that's a topic for another time. But it's in this final third that we get the famous scene between Stanton and Kinski, separated by a two-way mirror, where Stanton finally reveals what exactly happened between the two and why Hunter was left to stay with his uncle. It's a devastating performance by both of them, aided by clever directing from Wenders, that speaks to male insecurity, the costs of motherhood (is Kinski hinting at post-partum depression?), and how depression can generate violence. But rather than feel like a narrative catharsis, I was left feeling deeply ambivalent about this explosion of pain and hurt with hardly any real concern for the true victim in this toxic relationship: their son. The film ends with the two parents making decisions that feel emotionally true, but also, frankly, fucking insane.

So I don't really know how I feel about this film any longer. As a portrait of a guilt- and depression-ridden man, it's incisive. Wim Wender's directing is clever, and Robby Müller's cinematography is simply iconic. But as a complete narrative, it feels of two minds, or two hearts.