In the normal run of things, there’d be nothing at all curious about Jim Jarmusch dedicating a film to Jean Eustache. Like Charles Laughton’s Night Of The Hunter or that dog from Air Bud who died from cancer right after the shoot, Eustache is one of cinema’s great One Shot Deals. Before committing suicide in 1981, the French director bequeathed us several experimental films (Une Salle Histoire) and documentaries (Le Cochon, La Rosiere de Pessac), but he remains almost exclusively known for the seminal The Mother And The Whore, a gorgeous three-and-a-half hour beat film, much cherished by film students and, as has long been apparent, Mr. Jarmusch.
Odd then, that Broken Flowers is by far the least Eustachian film to come from the Jarmusch imprint. We still get the trademark languor and haphazardness, the comedy of despair, but, shockingly for the more diehard Sons Of Lee Marvin, these aspects are put in service of a plot. Yes, that’s right. A plot in a Jim Jarmusch film. We must have plunged through the looking glass during an inattentive moment.
Admittedly, it’s not a much of a plot in the more conventional sense. Broken Flowers forms an uncertain quest and takes its sweet time about getting nowheres in particular. But it’s surprisingly linear work from the Jarmusch quarter, playing sort of like an episode of Columbo with the first and final scenes lopped off. The loose ends and red herrings are all laid out like a nice trousseau, ultimately trumpeting the slacker fortune-cookie ethos -‘the journey is more important than the destination’ – with a little too much gusto.
There’s still much to admire, enchant even, though Jarmusch is far too cool and cerebral to get all charming. Still, only those possessed with hearts of clay could resist Bill Murray doing absolute deadpan, although he has trumped himself somewhat with remarkably similar recent turns in Lost In Translation and The Life Aquatic. Here, playing an ageing Lothario, or Don Juan as the film has it, Murray’s Don Johnston (cue Miami Vice riffs) is inspired from couch-bound entropy by an anonymous letter claiming that he fathered a son years ago, who’s now out to find him. A sleuthing amiable neighbour (Wright) intervenes with a Mulatu Astatke CD and an itinerary taking in four out of the five possible candidates for maternity (one has since died) to enable the search.
Could it be Sharon Stone, essaying a white trash race-car driver’s widow with a daughter named Lolita, who inevitably and indelicately struts about naked offering Popsicles? Frances Conroy is the identikit suburban possibility. “It’s strange to see how people’s lives change,” offers her dullard husband over an excruciating dinner.
It’s a point reiterated repeatedly by the director and with rather more force than could be deemed characteristic. Whatever Jessica Lange’s Animal Communicator may have had in common with our protagonist is long, long gone, that’s for sure. Her place of ludicrous business is like a new age Amazon sanctuary with Chloe Sevigny’s surly assistant glowering with distain for Murray, and one suspects his entire gender by proxy.
The reception afforded by Tilda Swinton, Lady Number Four, is less generous still. A vicious junkyard bitch with biker henchmen hovering closely, her terrifying appearance is, alas, far too brief. By then, Jarmusch has presented more than enough to allow the viewer to draw no firm conclusions whatsoever. On Planet Jim, the uncertainty principle reigns even in a less freeform film such as this, and women, with their pink flowers and weird wiles, don’t make a lick of sense. But he seems to dig us just the same. Right back at you.