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Broken Flowers (2005 - Jarmusch)
An aging Don Juan gets an anonymous letter from a former lover who claims she fathered him a son about twenty years ago. With the encouragement of his next door neighbor who fancies himself an amatur detective, he hits the road to see if he can determine which ex-paramour may have sent the letter, and if it's true that he has a child he never knew about.
Coming from Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Coffee & Cigarettes) the narrative is a little more conventional than his previous work. Even the closest he's come to working in genres, with Dead Man and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jarmusch's style and sensibility were in every frame. This story in Broken Flowers, while much slower paced than the multiplex crowd will be used to, adheres pretty tightly to the road movie expectations. Except that being Jarmusch, the ending will not be the convention much of the audience unaccostomed to his films will be waiting for.
But the main reason to see Broken Flowers is Bill Murray, who is in all his deadpan lonely guy glory here. I'f you loved Murray in Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and Lost in Translation, you'll love his performance here just as much. Over the years Billy has transformed himself into a good actor, and the subtlties of his performance in this movie are a joy to behold on the big screen. Wonderful character piece, inhabited perfectly by Murray.
If you're a fan of Bill Murray and/or Jim Jarmusch, Broken Flowers is a must-see. If you don't groove to those two, you probably won't be converted after this movie. But it's worth taking in for the uninitiated.
GRADE: B+
Broken Flowers (2005 - Jarmusch)
An aging Don Juan gets an anonymous letter from a former lover who claims she fathered him a son about twenty years ago. With the encouragement of his next door neighbor who fancies himself an amatur detective, he hits the road to see if he can determine which ex-paramour may have sent the letter, and if it's true that he has a child he never knew about.
Coming from Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Coffee & Cigarettes) the narrative is a little more conventional than his previous work. Even the closest he's come to working in genres, with Dead Man and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jarmusch's style and sensibility were in every frame. This story in Broken Flowers, while much slower paced than the multiplex crowd will be used to, adheres pretty tightly to the road movie expectations. Except that being Jarmusch, the ending will not be the convention much of the audience unaccostomed to his films will be waiting for.
But the main reason to see Broken Flowers is Bill Murray, who is in all his deadpan lonely guy glory here. I'f you loved Murray in Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and Lost in Translation, you'll love his performance here just as much. Over the years Billy has transformed himself into a good actor, and the subtlties of his performance in this movie are a joy to behold on the big screen. Wonderful character piece, inhabited perfectly by Murray.
If you're a fan of Bill Murray and/or Jim Jarmusch, Broken Flowers is a must-see. If you don't groove to those two, you probably won't be converted after this movie. But it's worth taking in for the uninitiated.
GRADE: B+