Broken Flowers review

Director Jim Jarmusch's films are well known to be spare, offbeat and inhabited by social misfits. Into this warped arena, thrust the lugubrious Bill Murray and you have the ingredients for Broken Flowers, an unhurried touching tale of an aging womanizer who discovers he's a parent of a teenage boy. The world reflected in Jarmusch's work bears only a vague resemblance to the real one, despite familiar settings. People behave and talk in obscure fashion. But to glimpse into such unusual territory is almost always - and certainly here - a beguiling treat.

Jarmusch has the experience and confidence to do almost nothing. Little is explained or justified. Broken Flowers exists on its own terms and is made refreshingly ambiguous so as to allow the viewer plenty of scope for interpretation. It begins when Sherry (Julie Delpy) walks out on Don Johnston (Murray). He does little to stop her, too wearied to care as yet another disillusioned women exits his life. Instead his picks up the mail, pours himself a drink and slumps on the couch.

In some respects Johnston resembles Bob Harris, the slovenly, lonely cynic Murray portrayed so poignantly in Lost In Translation. And in the same way, Don garners the sympathy and affection of beautiful women. Amongst the pile of mail is a pink envelope with a letter from one of his past conquests informing him that twenty years earlier he sired a son who is now seeking him out.

This monumental news is greeted with the same apathy he affords everything. Reluctant to disrupt his emotional and physical stasis, it's only following the urging of his enthusiastic neighbour Winston (Jeffrey Wright) that Don embarks on a trip to visit the women who might have sent the letter. Don's surprise reappearance in the lives of the various women causes differing reactions, some friendly some less welcoming. Murray's expressive face says far more than Don ever does and with each encounter, Don's hardened veneer begins to show a few cracks as he finds himself reevaluating his life.

There are some wonderfully eclectic performances from Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton as Don's old lovers, each offering an intriguing stop along the way. But Jarmusch's films are rarely about the destination and more about the journey. In the case of Broken Flowers it's a languid and rewarding one.