Some reviews are a joy to write. They fall off my fingers because of the way a film spoke to me. Jim Jarmusch has made a movie for everyone without losing touch with what has made him one of his generations most interesting filmmakers.
BROKEN FLOWERS
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Focus Features
105 Minutes
Rated R for Nudity, sexuality and language
Beginning with a letter Broken Flowers is a reminder that sometimes the simplest way of saying the simplest thing can set in motion the profoundest of revelations. I've never been a huge fan of Jim Jarmusch. His work always seems to generate an inordinate amount of buzz. What was Coffee and Cigarettes but an extended too often weak riff? And though some swear by Night on Earth or Dead Man I confess I find them engagingly quirky but lacking any real emotional resonance, they are as much about their style as their characters. Oddly it's lesser Jarmusch films that have held my attention the longest, films like Ghost Dog, precisely because they sacrifice some of their artifice to bringing their characters to life. What of Strangers in Paradise? Haven't seen it. Down By Law? I should probably see it again, it isn't fresh enough in my mind and maybe that's it's own comment.
But Broken Flowers is NOT lesser Jarmusch. It takes one of the great character actors and thrusts him into a situation that is not just tailor made for his unique presence but tailor made for our emotional response. Bill Murray is literally the only actor who could play Don Johnston but anyone can put themselves in the characters shoes, feel what the character feels. When it comes out on DVD put it on the shelf with Rushmore, and Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers is that good.
Murray plays Don Johnston an aging lothario who's leapt from one bed to another only to wind up alone in his nice digs watching The Private Lives of Don Juan on a big screen TV. The only light in his life comes from his next door neighbor Winston whose much more humble abode is filled with the joyous antics of children, a loving wife, home cooking and Winston's constant need for help in performing the simplest computer functions in the service of his hobby- private eye work and mystery novel writing.
When Don gets a mysterious letter informing him that he has an eighteen year old son out looking for him, Winston sees it as a sign that Don should revisit his old flames in search of the mother. Reluctantly Don hits the road and emerges as a rogue but a rogue willing to take the road less traveled towards much needed change.
Jarmusch squeezes life into a journey we've seen characters go on before by combining whimsy with weariness, danger and discomfort. His old lovers are a mix of married, single and widowed women who lead a mix of uptight, safe, and slightly loopy lives. Don is welcomed, reviled, dismissed and bedded but ultimately ends up in a place that would have left viewers feeling robbed if Jarmusch wasn't so gifted in helping them go on their own journey's.
Jarmusch does paint in broad strokes but they are human and natural truly contributing to the whole of his story. One of Don's former lovers has a daughter named Lolita who behaves exactly the way we expect a thirteen year old named Lolita to behave. But Jarmusch finds the humor not so much in Don's discomfort but in the harder place of Lolita's desperate ploy for attention. Likewise Jessica Lange's turn as an animal communicator (not a psychic- a communicator. How would you feel if a woman who claimed to be able to talk to cats could see through you like cheap paper. Don has lost himself but the Lange character is perfectly at home in her post Don existance.
Does Don find out who his son is, who the mother is? In this case getting there is all the fun and Broken Flowers serves as a poignant reminder that the adventure of living doesn't start with Once Upon A Time or often end with Happily Ever After. Does Don's story have a satisfactory ending? Jarmusch turns that last question on his audience in a way I found empowering and hopeful and worthy of the talent he so clearly commands. Is it an ending? You decide.
I have two reasons to be grateful to Bill Murray now. One is, of course, for making me laugh longer and louder than any other actor ever has. But the other is for making movies that make it seem real and noble to search for meaning. One distracts or brings life through a special kind of relief the other validates at the core.