Paradise Reel

Broken Flowers

I need to state for the record that I tried, extremely hard, mind you, to watch Bill’s Oscar effort “Lost in Translation”. I rented the film and even invited a few friends over to bolster the spirits but we only made it through to the 29 minute mark before the last one of us drifted off to La-La land. So, you could say that I was not exactly jumping out of my seat to watch Mr. Murray in his latest “dry comedy”. It was only on the insistence of my good friend, pseudopoestess that we catch the free screenings of “Broken Flowers” and “Happy Endings” at our college theater. The latter would have been my choice of the two movies but it was not screening then. So it was the former for me on that chilly Friday evening and after the film was over, I’m gently reminded once again why I have stayed away from movies by Bill Murray since the film “Lost in Translation”.

“Broken Flowers” should honestly be renamed “Lost in Suburbia: A Thesis in Awkwardness”. The film starts off innocuous enough with a letter addressed to a Don Johnston (Bill Murray) telling him that his philanderous bachelor days (actually, he still IS a bachelor in the film) has resulted in a teenage son that he does not know about. Piqued by his subdued curiosity and on the insistence of his self imposed best friend and neighbour, he goes on a quest to locate the mother of his son. This of course leads him through a mess of entanglements that are just as exciting as a rock in a frying pan.

As mentioned before, this concept behind this film is awkwardness and the sense of profound displacement the audience feels because of that. Even if it is not, it should be. Every scene in the film seems to be meticulously crafted in such diabolical detail to evoke the utmost sense of awkwardness. There is a scene in the movie where Bill Murray (“Ghostbusters” and “Groundhog Day”) contemplates his purpose of going on this quest. There is not inner monologue, no movement of camera or any movement in that shot for that matter. Don just sits at his sofa with his stereo blasting Mulatu Astake’s equally displacing “Yerkemo Sew” as the soundtrack. I seriously wonder if they had a time quota to meet and had to drag that redundant scene for longer.

The pacing of the film is totally off the marker. Even “Lost in Translation” has some semblance of a storyline flow but “Broken” appears as if most of the scenes were composed as an afterthought. Jim Jarmusch tries to duplicate the style and pace of “Lost in Translation” but fails what is already a slow and plodding pace to a film with any kind of subject matter. Perhaps he is trying to evoke a compelling sense of displacement in the viewer which then I must say that he succeeds tremendously. Or that he was over zealous in portraying the awkward feeling in the main character that we are ‘supposed’ to identify with. Either way, there are a host of replicated scenes or ones that have absolutely no bearing on the story at all. Some of which are there purely for shock value or to appease that teenage male who just so managed to sneak into an R rated movie.

Jessica Lange (“King Kong” and “Cape Fear”) and Sharon Stone (“Basic Instinct” and “Catwoman”) provide the female entanglements that Don has to wade through to discover the ex girlfriend who mothered his child. Although they were both accomplished actresses in their day, they are given little to do here. Sharon is the ex girlfriend widow with a daughter (Alexis Dziena of “Havoc” and TV’s “Invasion”) who has no qualms being in the buff in front of her mom’s ex boyfriends. Jessica Lange is an “animal communicator” (basically she talks to animals) with a lovely secretary to fend of pesky ex-boyfriends is played to administrative perfection by Chloë Sevigny (“American Psycho” and “Boys Don’t Cry”). The only gripe I have here is that one is presented with a wealth of good actors and actresses but they end up being as effective as lice on a tick. It would have been a lot more engaging if there was a plot for these actors to latch on to.

I loved Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman in “Ghostbusters” and his other later comedic efforts but subtle comedy does not seem to bode well with this actor. He does possess that disenchanted look which allows for him to do very little to incite laughs but this film milks this to its very marrow that it stops being funny altogether. The film “Lost in Translation” really lost me to a bunch of sheep jumping over a fence and now this serving of yet another “keen-eye-for-the-awkward-guy” clone falls flat on its face as it too seem to have lost something in its translation.