Day 13: "Broken Flowers"

"Well, the past is gone, I know that. The future isn't here yet, whatever it's going to be. So, all there is, is this. The present. That's it." 

There comes  a point in a comedian’s career when they go off the beaten path and attempt to become a serious actor. I guess this acting progression makes sense when comedian’s have based their whole career off of getting people to laugh at them. Perhaps the rush of a laugh wears off. Thus you get your famous comedian trying to land a dark role, one that perhaps matches a sad clown under their sunny exterior. This experiment tends to be extremely well calculated  as many actors from Robin Williams to Jim Carrey have performed well in more dramatic roles. With Williams and Carrey aside, there is one particular actor who spent the better part of this decade delivering terrific dramatic based performances: Bill Murray. Murray’s best role is quite obvious, “Lost in Translation”, but there is another performance out there by Murray that seemingly goes overlooked in his film canon. Said performance is found in 2005’s “Broken Flowers”, a tremendous, minimalist film.

Written and directed by  Jim Jarmusch, “Broken Flowers” tells the tale of Don Johnston (Murray). Don has lived a life that is more akin to Casanova than a Romeo. Women are his life blood, and he can never seem to get enough of them. The film opens up with Don blankly sitting on his couch, while his current girlfriend, Sherry (Julie Delpy), is in the process of leaving him. As this whole scene plays out, Don reacts almost as if he’s going through the motions. He doesn’t want Sherry to leave, but this has become the standard for his life. He entices women in, only to leave them or push them away.  There is a sense of regret in Don, but the past is the past for him. Well, that is until he finds a mysterious pink letter sent to him. The letter, written by one of Don’s past conquests, dictates that Don  has a love child. With no return address or even a signature, Don has no idea as to who has written the letter. Thankfully, Don has a good friend in Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a Sherlock Holmes disciple, who pushes Don to assemble a line up of his previous loves and to visit them one by one.

At Winston’s behest, Don goes on a cross country trek to meet four of his former flames in an attempt to reflect on his past, as well as see if there is more meaning to his life now that a potential son is somewhere out there. When Don visits all of his old flames (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton), he searches for clues as to whom the mystery sender is, but most of all, Don gets a glimpse of what his life could’ve been.  These particular moments with Don’s past girlfriends are well acted, awkwardly funny, and riddled with potential clues to Don’s big question. But for as nuanced as Jarmusch makes these scenes, he makes sure we understand that by the end, the most important thing for Don isn’t an answer to the question anymore than it’s his reaction to the question itself. For the first time in his life, Don actually gives a damn for something other than his exploits. Not to mention, he now has a  new found respect for the women he has seen come in and out of his life. All of the above is wonderfully transposed to the screen by masters of deadpan: Murray and Jarmusch. For those of you who loved Murray’s subdued, masterful performance in “Lost in Translation” you will love what he does here. His performance is quiet and quirky as much of his emotion slowly escapes through his body language.

It’s through Murray’s understanding of a nuanced performance that we can see Don’s slow transformation from a lover with no bounds to a beaten man.  Murray’s abilities are further magnified when placed in Jarmusch’s hands. As seen in most of Jarmusch’s previous films, there are a lot of idiosyncratic moments. Some of which include acts of nothingness combined with complete silence. Those who are not appreciative of Jarmusch’s style may find the film tedious at times, but I find that Jarmusch’s appreciation for silence allows for moments of reflection in his characters. In the case of Murray and his character, there is a lot of reflection, especially in the ending frame. Despite his unorthodox style, Jarmusch’s sense of humor molds beautifully with Murray’s comic timing. The laughs aren’t overt like in some of Murray’s previous work, but they’re wonderfully pulled out from the compromising situations that Don finds himself in. Despite the film’s subtle comedy regarding Don and his exes, the heart of “Broken Flowers” lies in the mounting regret Don has with his life, as well as the gleaming prospects of the future. From this forms a present that is a bittersweet pill for Don to swallow, but Jarmusch and Murray, with their deft characterization and comedy, assure us that it’s a pill worth swallowing.