Murray-Jarmusch team set off fora richly weird deadpan odyssey

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Friday, August 5, 2005

Murray-Jarmusch team set off fora richly weird deadpan odyssey

By WILLIAM ARNOLD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MOVIE CRITIC

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

MOVIE REVIEW

BROKEN FLOWERS

DIRECTOR: Jim Jarmusch

CAST: Bill Murray, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Jessica Lange

RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes

RATING: R for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use

WHERE: Harvard Exit

GRADE: B+

LINKS/TRAILERS
· Official site

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Bill Murray, the movies' greatest deadpan comedian since Buster Keaton, was destined to make a movie with Jim Jarmusch -- the director who invented the deadpan hip style that's been the dominant tone of U.S. indie cinema since the early 1980s.

The result is called "Broken Flowers," and it's a consciousness-raising personal odyssey in the tradition of such recent indie hits as "Sideways" and "About Schmidt" -- only less obviously comedic and, as always with Jarmusch, blissfully unresolved.

Audiences who don't like to be left hanging and need a ray of sunshine to ultimately shine through the gloom could hate it with a passion.

Others will find it a perfect vehicle for Murray and an absorbing, mesmerizing road trip with an emotional impact that's hard to shake.

Murray plays Don Johnston, a lifelong Don Juan who made a killing off computer stocks some years back, doesn't have any interest in life or much to do except mope around the house, and has just been left by his latest dissatisfied girlfriend (Julie Delpy).

That same morning, a letter arrives from another old girlfriend announcing that she had a son by him 19 years ago who is trying to make contact with him. But she didn't sign the letter, identify herself or leave a return address on the envelope.

So, egged on by his mystery-writer neighbor (Jeffrey Wright), Don reluctantly embarks on a journey across an angst-ridden 21st century America that is so homogeneous to the eye that we never have a clue as to what section of the country we're in, much less what state or city.

And he encounters four old flames of two decades past who are likely candidates for the secret motherhood: a professional closet-organizer (Sharon Stone), an animal-communicator (Jessica Lange), a real-estate mogul (Frances Conroy), and a biker babe (Tilda Swinton).

The movie -- Jarmusch's first in six years -- is less quirky and episodically diffused, and perhaps more interested in the box-office success that goes with showcasing a hot star, than any of the director's previous films ("Stranger Than Paradise," "Down by Law").

But it's still a richly weird excursion that delights in its vagueness, and Murray -- playing with even less emotion than he gave his character in "Lost in Translation" -- shows once again that no other contemporary actor can be so fascinating doing so little.