Broken Flowers (2005) Rated: R for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use. Runtime: 105 mins. Director: Jim Jarmusch Writer: Jim Jarmusch Cast: Bill Murray; Sharon Stone; Jessica Lange; Tilda Swinton; Julie Delpy ... complete cast Tagline: Sometimes life brings some strange surprises. Genre: Comedy
Memorable Quote: "I'm your mistress, except we're not even married
Reel rating:
3/5
Reel commentary: ...Broken Flowers: A So-So Plot, But the Flowers Were Pretty... full review
Broken Flowers, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, opens on the day the main character's current girlfriend is leaving him because, she says, he is a "Don Juan." His own name, coincidentally, is Don. Don Johnston. While the girlfriend's telling Don goodbye, a pink envelope falls through his mail slot. The girlfriend remarks that the letter must be from one of his former lovers. Then she drags her suitcase down the driveway, gets in her car, and drives away.
Don Johston, mail in hand, goes to his rastafarian neighbor's house to help with an urgent computer problem. After he hacks into an inaccessible website, Don, played by Bill Murray, sits down in one of his neighbor's office chairs, opens the pink envelope, and reads the enclosed letter. While his neighbor, Wilson, explores the website, Don reveals the letter's contents. It's an anonymous note from an ex-girlfriend saying that he has a twenty-year-old son. The letter-writer hasn't told their son a thing about Don or how to find him; the note is just to warn him that their son is smart, resourceful, and is now searching for his long-lost dad. An interesting premise.
Wilson, who appears to be much more interested in the possibilities of Don's situation than Don is, convinces his friend to make a list of all the women he slept with twenty years previous. Then he convinces Don to take a road trip to visit each woman in an attempt to discover who is the mother. Wilson also instructs Don to bring each ex- a bouquet of pink flowers. There are many shots of centerlines, plane flights, hotel rooms and houses, and as one would expect from Jim Jarmusch, each ex-girlfriend is quirky and beautiful in a different way. Each pink bouquet Don brings, as per Wilson's instructions, is unique too, and each looks very lovely on film.
Unfortunately, this movie suffers from poor writing. First and foremost is that the neighbor talks the remote and deadpan Don to go on this crazy adventure in the first place -- how did he do it? By telling Don to go. Which, on Jarmusch's part, is just plain lazy. This is compounded by odd casting and thin character development: he, this maundering Don, doesn't seem like anyone's Don Juan -- Bill Murray has kind eyes, sure, but his ass looks fat in his track suit, his face is pockmarked, and his expression indicates that he'd rather be watching television in a retirement-home bed than chasing down ex-lovers. Appearance aside, Murray's Don Johnston is played with such hollow remoteness it's hard to guess what motivates him, or indeed that anything could motivate him.
Next, after Don meets the first two of the four girlfriends, he calls Wilson from a hotel to say he's considering cancelling the rest of the trip, an obvious plot device meant to get the audience worried that he might not continue and the adventure will end. But the movie's only been running for an hour by this point, so of course we know he will. Do we care? Not particularly. Sadly, this turning point would have been a great place for a major plot complication that makes it impossible for Don to give up his search, something to provide us with an anchor of insight into Don's underdeveloped -- nay, boring -- character.
The oddest thing about the story was that it wanted to be a mystery, which is traditionally a genre requiring skin-tight plotting. And while the ultimate solution to the particular mystery in Broken Flowers -- who is the mother? -- is ambiguous, it isn't ambiguous enough; there are many hazy clues and red herrings, and instead of adding to the mystery, these detracted by leaving the audience feeling misled, then fatigued, then finally in urgent need of a piss after having held it throughout the movie. Also fatiguing was the running joke that the main character's name is not "Don Johnson," but "Don Johnston"; every time Murray introduces himself as such, the other characters have a merry laugh about it while the rest of us in the audience squirm.
Interestingly, one associates Jarmusch the screenwriter with Bill Murray's character, as both seemed equally lacking in purpose and drive. The soundtrack doesn't help either -- Jarmusch mainly uses the beginning of one song by The Ethiopiques, which he then plays over and over again, and while The Etihiopiques are quite good, their goodness doesn't make the film good by association.
In sum, this is a movie about one man's regrets that he never settled down with one of many wonderful women and had children. It's a rental, one that you should most certainly pause if you need to use the restroom.
