Broken Flowers

Red Eye Rundown
Funny, subtle, frustrating.
Why not try Bill Murray - The Life Aquatic, Scrooged, Ghostbusters Jeffrey Wright - Syriana
 
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Bill Murray is a wonderfully captivating actor who engages the screen so easily and makes people laugh and cry with equal aplomb. He is most comfortable as the arrogant, quirky, self loathing central character who goes on a mission to redeem his soul. Broken Flowers, is the story of Don Johnston (Bill Murray), an aging gigolo who spends his time watching old movies and listening to opera. The story begins with his latest girlfriend walking out the door. Don shrugs his shoulders and opens a letter from a woman claiming that he has a son coming to find him. His amateur detective neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright) convinces him to go on a cross country adventure to find out from a short-list of ex-girlfriends if this is true. After reluctantly packing his bag and leaving his cozy bubble, he sets off across America on a trip that will change his life forever. Bill Murray leads an interesting assortment of actors in this film. Each ex-girlfriend he visits provides the film-makers with an opportunity to create another unusual situation. The whole idea of an ex returning to ‘say hello’ is quite an amusing one especially when it may have been over 20 years since the last meeting. All of the actors do a really great job here including Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange and Christopher McDonald. With the standout I found to be Jeffrey Wright, Don's very human next door neighbour. Jim Jarmusch is an independent free-thinking artistic director with a very free-flowing human-narrative direction. In Broken Flowers, (which was written for Bill Murray) there is a great deal of stationary camera focus on Bill Murray allowing him the time to create the character and engage the audience. Jim Jarmusch’s films are intelligent and well thought out with a strong emphasis on the human journey, unusual stories and quirky perspectives. Broken Flowers was a little to reliant on it’s main character for the entire storyline. There was simply either not enough happening emotionally with the character or too much expected from Bill Murray. When one actor is required to carry the emotional narrative of the film, it can be extremely demanding. For this reviewer it was not enough to keep me interested. The best parts of the film came when Don (Bill) was put into situations with his ex-girlfriends. Often funny interactions and actions would result. Although this film was very subtle, it would have been better if the situations that contrasted with the subtleties (i.e. the ex-girlfriends), could have been made more explosive. Bill Murray was good, the film was average. Jim Jarmusch (director, writer) likes to show a side of amercia that a lot of other directors avoid, i.e. the bar where everybody knows your name. This was definetely noticeable within the film, however I would have preferred to have seen a little more life and vibrancy. The camera work and cinematography was good if not a little to reliant on the single camera on Bill Murray. Finally I feel the film could have done with some music to really help evoke a little more emotion in the audience. Overall an interesting and quirky film, let down by an over-reliance on the talents of Bill Murray, a stuttering storyline, and a disappointing ending.
 
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Genre Information
Genre: Comedy, Drama
 
Production Information
Produced in: USA
 
Release Information
Released: 2005

UK cinema: 13/07/2005
US cinema: 15/06/2005

UK DVD: 20/03/2006
US DVD: 03/01/2006
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