Like the rest of the internet, I have a passionate love affair with Bill Murray, and though Broken Flowers is yet another study on broken men, it's one of his best roles to date. Murray plays Don Johnston ("with a 'T'"), a resolutely single man who has just been left by his latest of many girlfriends, Sherry (Julie Delpy). But by some strange stroke of fate, that same day he receives a little pink envelope in the mail- no return address. The letter is from one of his former lovers, telling him he has a 19 year-old son who is now searching for his father. Don's neighbor (Jeffrey Wright), an amateur sleuth of sorts, encourages him to hit the road and pursue the mystery, giving him a game plan. Visit the former (sometimes spurned) lovers, bring them each pink flowers, meet his kid. And so begins Don's helter-skelter journey, a forced look at his past and the unique women who populated it.
Jim Jarmusch is nothing less than a modern master, and though Broken Flowers is a movie far inferior to Down by Law and Stranger Than Paradise, it's ultimately more accessible and its little, emotion-filled vignettes are sweet and touching. To be honest, Murray doesn't do much, but that doesn't mean he's not worth watching. There's really no one I'd rather watch do nothing than Bill Murray. His voice is permanently set on a low volume, and his once wildly expressive face remains perfectly still, any changes in emotion captured on close-up. The whole movie is muted, even in style. The greys of New England are the perfect setting for this film, in all its nuanced beauty. For some, the lack of resolution may be a frustrating ending to a leisurely, subtly-told story, but the story (in Jarmusch de rigeur) is less about the big moments and more about the small ones.
Jim Jarmusch is nothing less than a modern master, and though Broken Flowers is a movie far inferior to Down by Law and Stranger Than Paradise, it's ultimately more accessible and its little, emotion-filled vignettes are sweet and touching. To be honest, Murray doesn't do much, but that doesn't mean he's not worth watching. There's really no one I'd rather watch do nothing than Bill Murray. His voice is permanently set on a low volume, and his once wildly expressive face remains perfectly still, any changes in emotion captured on close-up. The whole movie is muted, even in style. The greys of New England are the perfect setting for this film, in all its nuanced beauty. For some, the lack of resolution may be a frustrating ending to a leisurely, subtly-told story, but the story (in Jarmusch de rigeur) is less about the big moments and more about the small ones.