|
|
|
plot synopsis: Don Johnston (Murray), an aging, wealthy playboy, receives an unsigned letter from a former lover saying she bore his son 19 years ago. Prodded by his wannabe-sleuth neighbor Winston (Wright), Johnston reluctantly undertakes a journey to visit each of the women who could have been the source of the letter.
(Warning: possible spoilers below.)
review: This is the kind of movie that drives Janice cuh-razy, because it proposes a mystery and then offers no easy answers or closure. Throughout his journey, Don is besieged by the kinds of seemingly-cosmic synchronicities and clues that, in more conventional movies, would lead to true love or some kind of easy revelation, but in this film they just kind of mess with his mind. Herring after herring turns out to be red (or pink in this case, as Don searches out pink visual clues). The final shot of the film is Bill Murray's face looking lost in thought, trying to process everything that has just happened to him, and it could just as well be the audience's face on the screen at that moment.
Jarmusch has a lot of mischievous fun in this film, inviting the audience in on the jokes and pointing out some non-subtle references. For instance, there is a blatantly Lolita-esque character named Lolita, and the script has multiple plays on the similarities of Don's name to both Don Juan and Don Johnson. Jarmusch's light touch helps these and other things that could come off as corny, like a comically-staged cell phone conversation or a surprisingly articulate redneck, feel breezy and off-the-cuff instead.
Bill Murray has settled deeply into his groove of lonely-rich-man roles and gives a very close-to-the-vest performance here as a man whose soul hasn't so much been crushed as it has just kind of fizzled out due to disuse. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, with Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Jessica Lange, and Frances Conroy really bringing life to each of Don's disparate group of ex-lovers. Jeffrey Wright's meddling neighbor character seems to be Jarmusch's surrogate of "cool" in the film, meeting Don in the kind of divey locales that Jarmusch loves and providing the hipster soundtrack (literally, by giving Don a mix CD).
I'm not sure if this was deliberate choice, but on each stage of Don's journey it looks like he's flying in and out of the same airport, and the geography all has a generic northeastern look, so it's like the plane is just flying in a circle and Don keeps ending up back at the same place. Is this a little more symbolic mischief from Jarmusch, I wonder, or was it a budget-necessitated limitation?
Somehow the lack of closure in the film was more satisfying for me than any kind of definitive solution could have been, because it seems to affect Murray's character more deeply and subtly than an easy answer would have. It also works better as a metaphor for life, from a philosophical point of view where the point of the journey is the journey. The film is kind of a one-hand-clapping thing, with some good laughs, excellent acting, and a really nice cat in one scene. I liked it. (mike.08.05)
rating
related links
