It comes as no surprise that last year’s Broken Flowers, staring Bill Murray, was
a hit with critics.  Beautifully shot, gracefully meditative,
a touch quirky and offering no neat, clean resolution, it’s
just the sort of film proponents of independent cinema clamber
over one another to embrace. It’s not a bad film by
any stretch of the imagination – that the finish will
leave you in as hazy an emotional state as Murray’s
character is left is a testament to the film’s ultimate
power – but the calls for Oscar (especially in Murray’s
case) are a wee bit overstated.
Broken Flowers tells the story of Don Johnston
(Murray), an aging ladies man who, we’re told, has bounced
from one beautiful woman to another throughout his life. Having
made his fortune in “computers,” Johnston has
settled into what appears to be a comfortable early retirement.
That is, until one day he receives an anonymous letter telling
him that 19 years prior he fathered a son, and that said son
may be looking for him.
When Johnston shows the letter to his mystery-writing neighbor,
Winston (Jeffrey Wright in an excellent supporting role),
a plan is hatched. Not by Johnston, who may be oblivious to
the news or who may be tormented by it – it’s
hard to tell which – but by Winston, who urges his friend
and neighbor to seek out four former lovers who are likely
candidates to be the mother of his child. What follows are
a series of often painfully awkward scenes in which we explore
Johnston’s past as a ladies man, and in which Murray
manages to be overshadowed by virtually every member of the
supporting cast.
 Sharon
Stone shines as Laura Miller, one of Murray’s past lovers,
now a widow living with her exhibitionist of a daughter. Stone
brings a genuine warmth to the screen, but it’s fleeting;
we won’t see it again for the rest of the film. Johnston’s
second former lover, Dora Anderson, is clearly still smitten
with him, a tense, confused love she never gave up that is
brought off beautifully in a brilliant performance by Frances
Conroy. Jessica Lange, on the other hand, playing Dr. Carmen
Markowski, couldn’t care less that Johnston is back
in town; she’s too busy acting quirky and unusual and
eccentric. And finally is a brief but fiery appearance by
Tilda Swinton, who burns up the screen as Johnston’s
fourth and final former lover, Penny.
 What
all of these women have in common, aside from being memorable
characters, is that they leave the audience wondering why
they ever loved Johnston in the first place. Because really,
there isn’t much to love. And that’s probably
the film’s biggest flaw. Murray’s performance
has gotten enthusiastic raves, but honestly, don’t believe
the hype. We’re supposed to believe there are women
scattered across the country still smitten by this man, yet
it’s difficult to see what they ever saw in him. Murray
is distant, distracted and charmless. He offers no charisma,
no personality, and no clue as to how he managed to be a ladies
man. Oh, his self-effacing melancholy is in full effect, moreso
than even in Lost In Translation, but unlike
that film, his wistful melancholy doesn’t seem to mean anything. He’s an empty, alienated middle-aged man,
but we never get a sense of why. At the very least
you’d think director Jim Jarmusch would allow us  to
sympathize with Murray’s character, to feel for him
so we can take the journey, too, but if Jarmusch tried to
do this, it’s hard to tell. Murray pouts, frets, and
gazes emotionlessly into the distance, leaving the supporting
cast to do all the heavy lifting because Murray doesn’t
have anything to do but stare emptily. They manage
to carry the load well, but if Jarmusch wanted us to understand
that Johnston feels empty inside because he can’t truly
connect with people, he fails in that task. All we’re
left with is the nagging sense that a guy as unlikable as
Don Johnston could not possibly have charmed his
way into the lives of woman after woman, which undermines
a great deal of the film.
None of this is to say that Jarmusch fails with Broken
Flowers. Not at all. The film never falls into the
trap of “too much quirk” indie “dramadies”
are so prone to, and the film is paced perfectly and beautifully
shot. More importantly, Jarmusch paints characters with deftness
and ease, in just a few strokes of the brush giving the audience
a very tangible sense of who these women are; we know their
lives; and we know their thoughts. If he failed to offer us
a real understanding of Johnston, he makes up for it with
the wonderful, subtle depth of the supporting cast.
 He also deserves credit for refusing to treat the audience
like a bunch of morons. Jarmusch, who also wrote the script,
doesn’t beat us over the head with message, message,
message. He allows the story to unfold in a very natural,
purposeful way, always leaving enough open to interpretation
– a glance, a gesture, a smile, strangers’ eyes
meeting for a fleeting moment – that you’re left
feeling that Broken Flowers contains layer
upon layer of subtext to examine (even if it’s not really
there at all). The maddening ending especially is brilliantly
played and emotionally devastating, and, to its credit, not
in a Big, Obvious way. You’re left dazed, confused and
with the feeling that you may have just lost something very
important, but what that something is manages to be elusive,
considering how little we care about Johnston. After sleepwalking
through most of the story, Murray is left looking like he
was punched in the gut. And that’s just how you feel
watching it. Remarkably effective.
Broken Flowers may not be the Bill Murray
tour de force many claim it is, and it certainly has its flaws,
but that doesn’t stop it from being a methodical, thoughtful
glimpse into four lives that intersect with one man.
Disc Presentation
Broken Flowers looks beautiful. Yes, it’s a
low-key, “talky” film, but the locations are wonderfully
realized and alive with color – color always perfectly
chosen for character and mood. The mix-and-match colors of
lower middle class suburbia; the soulless whites and silvers
of upper middle class “McMansion” America; the
earthy browns of a woman too in touch with her spiritual side;
the drab, weathered look of a ramshackle lower class home.
All this, when coupled with the moody road cinematography,
makes Broken Flowers a visually pleasing
film. And that comes across on this DVD.
 The
audio is less impressive, though that may simply be because
the sound in general is less impressive. The sparse source
music there tries to fit the mood, often fails, but otherwise
sounds just fine. The dialogue is always clear, and in the
end, that’s the important thing. Nothing impressive,
but nothing to complain about, either.
Extras
The extras here are nice, but not essential and not particularly
thorough. Girls On The Bus offers some outtakes of
annoying, chattering college girls. Funny. Once. Farmhouse is a brief featurette in which Jarmusch discusses his approach
to film, made up of taped comments played over random outtake
footage. Some of his comments are very revealing and may help
you see the film in another light. They certainly have me
wanting to sit down with this film again. Broken
Flowers: Start To Finish featurette
is a brief look into the making of the film; not particularly
enlightening, it’s a scattered bunch of behind the scenes
footage cut with little regard to imparting actual information;
an empty extra. Finally, some trailers and soundtrack
information round out the extras.
Overall
The hype came on a little too strong
and the strength of Murray’s performance has been overstated,
but that doesn’t make Broken Flowers a bad film. In fact, it manages to offer a poignant sense
of vague, intangible loss despite its flaws, with an emotional
punch at the finish that will leave most grasping for … something.
And in the
end that’s exactly what Broken Flowers is about. Grasping, yearning, desiring, but not knowing what
the hell you’re yearning for.
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