BROKEN FLOWERS (2005)

Films about men with children they’ve never met, who must reconnect with their past and some of the most important people within it, are a dime a dozen. However, in Broken Flowers, writer-director Jim Jarmusch does the near-impossible in crafting a fresh spin on this storytelling flavour. Usually, cheesy redemption stories of this ilk are precipitated by scathing assessments of boorish, contemptuous men, but Jarmusch avoids this predictable approach in his treatment of protagonist Don Johnston (Bill Murray). The director instead goes for a droll, laid-back tale, where minutes at a time can pass by without a single line of dialogue or interaction of consequence. Unfortunately, this unique attempt at a hangout movie isn’t nearly so effective at hammering home the bittersweet, melancholic reflections of an old, somewhat lonely man, instead becoming a shaggy dog story without enough laughs to keep it from being dead on arrival.

At least, that’s what I thought when I first watched the film—the above lines are ripped verbatim from a previous attempt to review it. I then happened to come across a physical copy of Broken Flowers, and decided to give it another chance. In spite of the fact that it had been less than three weeks since I had the displeasure of viewing the film, I found it to be a great work of art upon a second watch. The experience wasn’t revelatory, but it came damn close to it. The parts that seemed annoying or boring were instead imbued with great feeling, with it soon becoming clear that these emotions could only ever have been accessed through the film’s uniquely deadpan tone. In Broken Flowers, life itself is a punchline, which can seem rather cruel if one considers it for too long. But the truly bleak aspect of this film is that none of these characters realise this (except Don, but that awareness is fleeting).

Murray is as restrained as he could ever be in this role, eschewing big laughs or teary-eyed moments. He never exactly lives up to the Don Juan archetype that his character supposedly fit into as a younger man, but it’s also clear to Don’s former lovers that he’s no longer the same man. These old flames are very different people also, with each reunion feeling more strained, or just downright unsuccessful, than the last. After receiving an anonymous note letting him know that he has a 19-year-old son who has left home recently and may or may not be on his way to Don’s address, this protagonist embarks on a cross-country journey to meet the five women most likely to have written the letter. Well, four—one of them has died, prompting Don to visit her gravestone.

These addresses are discovered by Winston (Jeffrey Wright), Don’s Jamaican neighbour, a hammy role that’s anchored by a foreign accent and a love of detective fiction. Winston might be a totally contrived character in how he analyses Don’s situation, arranges everything for him to embark on this quest, and questions the openness of this mystery, but he’s also highly entertaining. The pair understand each other not just in silence, but when the other person is telling a blatant falsehood. When Don acts as if he hasn’t spent a second thinking about this anonymous letter, it’s not just that Winston knows he’s lying, Don is well aware of how his friend views this statement. Yet they both continue to lie to one another anyway. It’s a bizarre little contradiction that is unmistakably human, a phenomenon that Jarmusch is fascinated with, and which gives Broken Flowers so much meaning across Don’s fraught journey.

Aside from the gravestone of Don’s old flame Michelle Pepe, Winston tracks down the locations of former lovers Laura (Sharon Stone), Dora (Frances Conroy), Carmen (Jessica Lange), and Penny (Tilda Swinton). Is this a contrived way to kick off a story? Almost certainly, but it maps on very well to Don’s understated and downright lazy approach to life. He’s handed a quest by this anonymous letter, then gifted the means to embark on it. All he has to do is follow a pre-planned itinerary that his friend wrote for him. He technically possesses free will to do whatever he wants, but typically when he exercises this it leads to him sitting alone in his house, watching old films and listening to sombre ballads. It’s not just that he’s lazy, he’s downright transient, a shimmering being that’s caught halfway between this world and the next, never fully present. Don would be the worst possible protagonist for a road trip film in any other film, but he fits snugly into Jarmusch’s offbeat rhythm.

For any potential first-time viewers, don’t expect big, showy moments. For Jarmusch fans, the phrase ‘more of the same’ doesn’t exactly do this film justice, though it will help you get a feel for what Broken Flowers is going for. But in the end, it’s Murray, not Jarmusch, that is the most valuable aspect of this experience. The actor embodies a world-weariness in Don that’s subtle enough for the character to initially seem like a well-rounded sad sack who’s clearly made some bad decisions in the past. It’s only as the film develops and deepens that one can witness the haunting loneliness lurking within him.

Actors and actresses can make a living and even earn great acclaim from knowing how to react to their characters’ environment, but Murray does something far rarer here. No matter how strange or distant these ex-lovers are, emotions are never forced out of him, just as he’s not simply reacting to his environment. At every turn, they flow through him, wrapped up in a fading playboy who you assume must have known his glory days were over long ago, yet improbably comes to this slow realisation throughout Broken Flowers’ runtime. Don has been transient in life for far too long, but is only now beginning to see it. He’s afforded a reprieve from the haunting questions this dilemma drudges up by returning to Winston’s itinerary and its exactness. It does him few favours, but he needs to follow something concrete amidst the sweeping malaise that has taken over his life and identity.

Murray doesn’t just accomplish this tall order masterfully, he mostly does it wordlessly. Yet even with this protagonist’s despairing outlook, the veteran actor demonstrates in many of these silent interactions that Don still remains unwilling to give up on himself. One can glimpse a strange and intoxicating cocktail of pride and regret simply in how he holds himself upright during these odd meet-ups with former lovers. It’s often in the peripheries of these scenes, where it seems like nothing’s happening, that the heart of this performance is found.

The comedy is frequent, but played with such little need to elicit laughter that the occasionally hilarious moments shock you with their wit and spontaneity. Just about every interaction is awkward, but in a way that invites you to want to know more about these characters and the history they shared. They manage to be uncomfortable without ever being cringeworthy, daring you to take on the role of Winston and assess each of these people’s motives. I can’t say I ever felt compelled to do this on a first watch, during which I found Broken Flowers to be an aimless and agonisingly slow-moving film, a stoner comedy with hardly any weed present, where the writers got so high they forgot to try and wrangle some much-needed laughs out of viewers.

But on a slightly more recent watch, this story’s melancholic notes cut deep, while the resolve that Don tries to cling onto in spite of Broken Flowers’ lonely centre inspired feelings of pity and pride. Though I had previously written that the film ‘is one big anti-cliché, a rock-solid lump of a film without an an attractive shape or structure, totally impenetrable on an emotional level if not for Murray’s superb lead performance’, I have seen the light and recognise its brilliance. The awkwardness in these scenes is a function of how adrift Don is from these former lovers and his old self, where reminders of a long-lost connection only separate these characters even further, since to pore over old memories prompts these characters to reflect on the divergent paths that have brought them to this odd and slightly uncomfortable juncture. But this feeling of tension also serves as a buffer from just lonely and alienating it can feel to reflect on these ideas. That said, the film’s ending doesn’t quite resonate as deeply on these fronts, failing to pack enough of an emotional punch in its strained effort at being ambiguous and bittersweet.

But it still ends on a worthwhile note, leaving you to ponder whether it’s the journey or the destination that makes this film, and life itself, worthwhile, and for that Broken Flowers deserves acclaim for sticking the landing of a remarkably unique film that never sacrifices its offbeat tone. For some (like the very slightly younger version of me who wrote this just under three weeks beforehand), “what’s most disappointing is that one gets the sense that Jarmusch is just a degree off in how to convey a story like this, but that slightly wonky calibration ensures that almost every moment comes out as a garbled and soulless version of whatever it set out to be.” It’s true that this director is operating on a wavelength that practically no other filmmaker would employ with any story, let alone storytelling ground as well-worn as Broken Flowers’ plot. But it’s a winning formula that showcases the inner resolve, soft disappointment, and general aimlessness in people’s lives that films so rarely ever try to depict, let alone get right.

FRANCE • USA | 2005 | 101 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writer & director: Jim Jarmusch.
starring: Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Chloë Sevigny, Mark Webber & Alexis Dziena.