'Broken Flowers' review

Bill Murray yet again channels chic detachment in Jim Jarmusch's disaffecting new feature

By Ceda Xiong
Published: August 10th, 2005 | 12:12pm

As a film about a man visiting ex-lovers to find an alleged 19-year-old son, Broken Flowers should be the stuff of touching approachability. Ex-lovers and mistakes of youth are topics that far less talented directors have milked effortlessly. Director Jim Jarmusch recognizes the accessibility of these issues and then takes an awkward detour around their emotional weight.

In the opening scene, when his girlfriend Sherry (a woefully miscast Julia Delphy in an uncomfortable divorcee suit), walks out on Don Johnston (Bill Murray), Murray's understated response is exaggeratedly too understated. The subsequent parade of of ex-girlfriends that Don visits, including Laura (Sharon Stone) and Penny (Tilda Swinton), should leave any man love-crippled, but Murray barely reacts to each woman. For god's sake, do you have to be dead to get Murray's attention? Unfortunately, you do, because the gravestone of a dead girlfriend is the one that gets the most tender treatment.

Don is similar to other characters Murray has played, such as Bob Harris in Lost in Translation and Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic. They are men who have suddenly woken up in the middle of their lives. Murray has made a career of playing the quirky emotionally stagnant character, and the problem is that so many of his movies now all seem to be about one character. Broken Flowers won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and Jarmusch upsets no critics by centering the story around the tried-and-true Murray character. Too bad it's what makes the movie fall flat to audiences.

As in most Jarmusch movies, there are skillful touches in Broken Flowers: the outstanding details of the different pink bouquets for each girlfriend indicate that Don Johnston not only remembers his girlfriends, but also the kind of flowers they would have preferred. However, these small and loving details are still offset by the way Murray plays Don's detachment, which does nothing to discourage the audience's detachment from Don. Broken Flowers is a move in a new direction for Jarmusch and perhaps his next steps will allow him to find a way out of the strait jacket of ironic cool.