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Broken
Flowers
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Julie Delpy,
Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton
Film Review by David Chiu
Bill Murray has gone through a career renaissance
starting with his Oscar-caliber turn in Lost in Translation.
The once sardonic comedian has come a long way from his days
of trying to kill that gopher in Caddyshack and who uttered,
"This chick is toast!" from Ghostbusters. His
melancholic and understated performance from Lost continues on
with the serio-comic and enigmatic Broken Flowers, directed
by Jim Jarmusch.
Murray plays Don Johnston (not the Miami
Vice actor, which has been a running joke in the film), a
lonely-heart who spends his time on the couch watching old movies
and cartoons on the TV. At the same his last girlfriend Sherry
(Julie Delpy) leaves him, and he only makes a half-hearted effort
to stop her from going. Then Don gets a mysterious pink envelope
in the mail with no name and no return address; the typewritten
letter is supposedly from an old ex-girlfriend from twenty years
ago who claims Don fathered her son, and now that son has gone
out looking for him.
Don thinks nothing much about it but his
more-than-encouraging neighbor Winston (played hilariously by
Jeffrey Wright) takes it upon himself to investigate the matter.
From the information that Don reluctantly gives him, including
a list of old flames, Winston tracks down four of Don's girlfriends
from the past and plans Don's itinerary-including rent-a-car,
hotel, and plane tickets-to go meet the women; he asks Don to
find the typewriter so he can match it with the letter, and to
bring each woman a bouquet of pink flowers.
At first Don thinks the idea is ludicrous
but after a while, he follows along Winston's plan and treks
cross-country in planes and rent-a-cars. He meets one old flame
after another: Laura (Sharon Stone), a closet rearranger, realtor
Dora (Frances Conroy) trapped in a sterile marriage with a blowhard
of a husband (Christopher MacDonald); Carmen (Jessica Lange),
an animal communicator, and finally Penny (Tilda Swinton), a
trailer trash refugee. With each encounter, Don sees how they
turned out now-for better or worse, depending on what you think-and
finds that the truth is stranger than the mysterious letter itself.
Don also undergoes a sort of transformation from being settled
on being alone to taking a proactive stance to find his illegitimate
son.
A tinge of sadness along with the element
of suspense pervades the film, no doubt thanks to Murray's detached,
minimalist performance. Even when you don't really think of him
as a romantic lead, you are convinced he is a Don Juan type in
the context of the relationships he had with the women, and how
that reflects his inability to maintain a long steady relationship.
Some elements of humor are sprinkled in such as Don's reactions
to Winston's annoying persistence, and the scene of him eating
awkwardly at Dora and her husband's house. Even at a moderate
pace, Jarmusch keeps the film going (fade-ins and fade-outs)
and bringing an indie spontaneity. Just as the film's title implies,
Broken Flowers is a bittersweet film filled that examines
the cost of severed relationships and their long-lasting consequences
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