Review of Broken Flowers (2005) by Dawdlingpoet — 24 Nov 2021

The movie is pretty slow in places but it does well for the type of movie that it is. It is more of a philisophical, thought-provoking movie with some amusing quips put in for good measure, than anything too fast and hilarious but you maybe already guessed that given the main star involved and the basic story.

Although I suppose you could say that this is a bit of a middle aged movie, if there is such a thing!, I still enjoyed it. I am quite keen on sometimes watching movies that do really make you wonder about things and this one definately does. I certainly hope that I don't end up Don's age and on my own, he definately appears to be a fairly sad character, though he may not admit it himself, you know the usual sort of blankly emotional character that Murray tends to play. I agree with the director that this movie does suit Murray and he does play the role very well. I've been a fan of him since I grew up with the Ghostbusters movies (of course a very different type of movie(s) altogether but they were some 20 years ago!) and then when I saw Groundhog Day, which happens to be my favourite movie, or joint favourite with another which he isn't in. I'm contemplating doing a review for Groundhog Day at some point, if I can do it justice! but anyway, back to this movie... I thought that the character was quite intriguing, every person that he met sort of told you a bit more about him. It turns out that he used to be a bit of a 'Don Juan' as Winston quips, though he's not keen on that name/phrase at all! and it seems to go against how he appears to be now... the sort of stale and semi emotionless character that he's shown as, I suppose it teaches you that this is what happens if you stay single for so long! well I don't know about that but you know what I mean... (lol) he's seen wearing sunglasses and appearing quite mysterious when in the airport and on the plane and buses, trying to ignore the chitter chatter going on around him, when he often has flashbacks to what he's seen and discovered so far, being forced to think back to what happened so long ago probably unsettles him quite alot...

It is quite an 'artsy' movie, with the symbolism with the colour pink and the feature of the story being shown in a number of scenes, all fading to black, as already mentioned. It doesn't have that big a mainstream feel and so its no surprise that I hear it did well at some film festivals.

One thing I can't really decide on whether I like or not, though, is the ending. I can kind of see that it wraps things up and not in the way you perhaps think (I won't spoil it, buy the DVD if you want to find out - you can get it cheap enough online it seems). I didn't feel that sure quite what the viewer was supposed to think or take away from it, if you know what I mean. I was kind of hopeful that there may be more at the end, where instead it seemed to be another scene ending and the 'directed by' credit appeared with the rest of the credits following, so nope, that was the end! hmmm... im not sure about that. I *think* I get it but im not totally sure, it does definately make you wonder and question what happened at the end.

The movie was what I expected it to be, Murray playing another rather down trodden and somewhat lost seeming but yet philosophical character. The story was intriguing and the acting was all top notch, in my opinion. All the characters added something and it all led to what I hoped would be a particularly interesting and good ending, which im not entirely convinced of. I suppose it would be difficult to think of what an alternative ending might be, but there was something that made me think it ended just that bit too soon and that slightly disappointed me.

Apart from that and the fact that I felt it dragged a bit too slowly, I think it was a pretty well made movie and its worth seeing, especially if your a fan of Murray. I felt that overall it was a good movie but it wasn't excellent, its worth seeing but its not something your probably going to want to see repeatedly, in my own opinion, of course.