Movie Review: Murray Does What Only He Can in "Broken Flowers"

Johnston seems negligibly bemused when he receives a letter from an anonymous ex telling him that they had a son together years ago and that now their son is on a quest to meet his father. He would just as well write the letter off as a ruse by a sadistic woman from his past, but his gregarious, dope-rolling Ethiopian neighbor Winston, played to perfection by the always brilliant Jeffrey Wright, will have nothing of Johnston’s indifference. Juxtaposed to Winston’s ebullience and bustling family life, Johnston’s resignation to his living room seems all the more stark.

Winston insists Johnston set out across the country in a Holmesian quest (accented with a wonderful, noirish soundtrack) to find the letter’s source. What ensues is a stroll down memory lane as Johnston visits with unsuspecting exes, with whom he has seriously limited rapport, due, we infer, to his inability to love them and the damage done to them by his self-involvement. As with the rest of his life, Johnston’s efforts come across as uninspired, if comical, at best. One gets a sense from the aging Lothario's encounters that life has passed him by and that he has been relegated to the deep recesses of these women's minds. As they have moved on with their lives, to varied results, Johnston has stagnated, hardly capable of genuine emotion at this point.

Murray’s comedic timing is absolutely brilliant, but his character, while lacking feeling, inspires in the viewer a certain empathy for him. And though the film gives no hint that this emotionally crippled man could have ever been a lover of epic proportions, Murray makes it believable in a “don’t ask, just trust me” sort of way. His discovery that the women from his past have developed lives separate from their ones with him hardly registers with Johnston, yet we feel sadness upon realizing that he is genuinely alone and that his past has forgotten him. It is quite an achievement when an actor can make you care for a character who seemingly does not care for himself.

The movie features Jarmusch's trademark naturalism, and the laconic pace of the understated auteur and his lead may be tiring for some, but we simply loved it. And while the film’s ending may leave viewers scratching their heads, it is enigmatically touching for a film that, while deadpanned to the point of near lifelessness, still manages to warm the heart and captivate the mind.

Go see the movie and let us know what you think. And let us know what Murray roles are your favorites.