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Broken Flowers

2005, Movie, R, 106 mins

Broken Flowers: Review

BROKEN FLOWERS
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Perhaps the most mainstream film of Jim Jarmusch's career, this rueful road movie sends an aging lothario in search of the ex-girlfriend who may have borne him a son 19 years earlier. Don Johnston (Bill Murray) has always been lucky with women — lots of women — and an entrepreneurial venture involving computers has left him financially set for life. But he's stuck in emotional neutral, living with younger girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) in a handsome house so devoid of warmth and individuality it could be a model home. His neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), is his best (and probably only) friend, a relationship clearly born of proximity and nurtured by Winston's warmth and expansiveness. When Sherry packs her bags and leaves, Don responds by falling asleep on the couch; her longing for something more from their relationship — children, connection, purpose — is as mysterious to him as the inner life of clouds. Don's reaction to the bombshell that arrives in his mail — a pink envelope with no return address and an indecipherable postmark, containing a typed, unsigned letter claiming that Don has a 19-year-old son who may be looking for him — is equally disengaged. But Winston loves a mystery, and Winston loves fatherhood. He's not about to let Don ignore the possibility that he has a child and works out a game plan, right down to the day-by-day itinerary. All Don has to do is show up with flowers at the doorsteps of four former loves: aging good-time girl Laura (Sharon Stone), whose brittle optimism has been sorely tested by life; former flower-child Dora (Frances Conroy), now a buttoned-up realtor who sells prefab McMansions with her husband (Christopher McDonald); high-powered lawyer turned "animal communicator" Carmen (Jessica Lange); and angry biker-chick Penny (Tilda Swinton). Once inside, he'll look for clues — a typewriter, family photos, a particular fondness for pink — anything that might give away the letter writer's identity. Former goofball Murray, who's aged into a glacial icon of chilly sadness, is the perfect vehicle for writer-director Jarmusch's brand of detached, hipster cool. Don's trip down memory lane takes him through a series of anonymous towns, suburbs and rural backwaters, all carefully stripped of identifying signs; by the time he gets to Penny the map is mostly white space, a bleak chart of inner emptiness. The film ends on an ambiguous note that will infuriate some viewers and strike others as the only possible finale to Don's sad absurdist journey. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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