If Bill Murray was Finnish then it’s likely that he already would’ve been part of a few Aki Kaurismäki films. This Finnish giant’s trademark dead-pan low-brow style and humor has had a huge influence on Jim Jarmusch, especially early on in his career, but it seems like he has now gone back and stolen one of Kaurismäki's protagonists for Broken Flowers, his latest meditation on rootlessness and belonging. Kent Jones once said that Bill Murray is not an "actor." And Jarmusch has never particularly liked actors so this is a perfect match between two individuals who’ve been honing their craft for years. Murray plays Don Johnston, an aging Don Juan who, with much help from an Ethiopian neighbor (Jeffrey Wright), goes on a trip to locate the woman who has sent him a letter claiming that he has a son.

The sort of world Jarmusch usually creates in his films is never quite "realistic," and it’s not meant to be so (a great example of this would be his 1999 feature Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai with a modern day Samurai patrolling Jersey City). So there’s no need to be alarmed even if it’s quite unlikely that an Ethiopian with five kids would be living next door to someone like Murray with his posh pad. Nevertheless, Jarmusch, as he establishes with a tracking-shot early on, wants us to compare the differing environments of the two individuals. As for the "Don Juan" talk, well, it’s quite easy to decipher that from the film Murray is watching on his HD set, but people who’ve actually seen that film (Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Don Juan [1934]) will note that the old film also had an aging Casanova trying to reconnect with his old flames. (Frankly, I have an easier time buying Murray as a Don Juan than as someone who made money with computers, whatever the hell that means.)

Broken Flowers has wit and charm to spare. It’s also meticulously observed (for the most part) and exquisitely arranged but Jarmusch, unlike Dead Man (1995) and the aforementioned Ghost Dog, never quite manages to study and explore the various clichéd elements he establishes once our Don Juan hits the road. The "Lolita" segment is practically saved by Bill Murray’s "non-reaction" reaction even though Jarmusch’s act here seems more like a Payne-esque riff on mid-American aloofness to our literary and cinematic worlds. And the subsequent segment is over-acted and directed so it ends up being quite rigid, right down to a block of rice staring Murray in the face. But Jarmusch and Murray’s journey finishes up strong with the third segment featuring the funniest line the film. We also start noticing what kinds of problems these relationships might've had.

Jarmusch's musical choices are usually on the mark and that’s exactly the case here. From The Greenhornes’ "There is an End" to "I Want You" from Marvin Gaye, but especially it’s the various Jazz tunes from Ethiopian Mulatu Astatke that help establish and keep a certain mood right till the end. Murray, whose segment with RZA and GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan was the sole interesting aspect of Jarmusch's previous effort Coffee and Cigarettes (2004), gives a minimalist "non-performance" performance which is the best of his career. He basically controls the film with his eyes and that’s quite a task. And he even comes through in the scene in which he is required to act. That scene takes place near the end of his journey and it gives the film some weight that it lacked. One only wishes that Jarmusch would've dropped his quizzically cool act for a few more sequences with heart, only because a film like this required it. He does finish the film strong, though, leaving quite a few possibilities for us to mull over. But unlike Stranger than Paradise (1984), which I still believe is his best film, or even Dead Man, and very much like its own protagonist, it’s likely that Broken Flowers will not mature with age.


Grade: B

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*BROKEN FLOWERS is now playing in theaters nationwide.