Review of Broken Flowers (2005) by Josh H — 10 Dec 2011

Once Again, the Hang-Dog Face Sells It.

Okay, I admit that it's hard to accept that Bill Murray is much of a chick magnet. And even twenty years ago, that didn't really work. The thing is, we know what Bill Murray looked like in 1985, and it's not that difficult to imagine what Bill Murray's character was like in 1985. But okay, pretend that it would be possible to believe that he would have been able to sleep with Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton. (Actually, I believe Frances Conroy.) All in a short enough time frame that the plot of the movie makes sense. You can believe that he has since then lived the kind of life which leads to the one he's living now, one of great regret and silence. Certainly he's lived hard enough to have that craggy face. And it's always been easy to believe Bill Murray when he plays characters who don't like themselves very much--easier for me to believe than when he plays egomaniacs, honestly.

Here, he is Don Johnston (with a "T"), who made money in something unspecified to do with computers and now doesn't much have to work. He is in mid-fight with his current girlfriend, Sherry (Julie Delpy), when he receives a letter informing him that he is a father. And has been for about twenty years. And his son is maybe coming to look for him. He has a few hints about who the letter is from, but it is unsigned, and the postmark has gotten wet and blurred. His neighbour, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), prides himself on his detective skills and tracks down the five women who were in Don's life at about the right time. One is dead, but he provides addresses and makes travel arrangements for the other four. One gets the feeling that Winston would love to go himself, but he has a wife (Heather Alicia Simms), four kids, and three jobs. And so Don sets out to find the women of his past and possibly the son of his future.

One of the interesting aspects of Facebook to me has been seeing what has become of people. Come June, it will be my older sister's twentieth high school reunion. The life we chose to lead is not always the life we end up leading; I suspect a lot of them are surprised at where I've ended up. Come to that, so am I. The women express mild surprise at Don's career. He is frankly astonished at what happened to pretty well all of them. The hippie girl (Conroy as Dora) is now a submissive wife to her real estate agent husband. (She thought bottled water was where the money was; time has proven her right.) The one who wanted to be a lawyer (Lange as Carmen) is now a pet psychic, though she insists the term is inaccurate. She says three times that she's a communicator. Heaven only knows where he expected Penny (Swinton) to be, but this isn't it. And Laura (Stone) seems to be the widow of a race car driver (I may have missed something), and she actually named her daughter (Alexis Dziena) Lolita.

The thing is, Don doesn't want his life to change. The only truly joyful people in the movie are Winston, Mona, and their kids. There's a wonderful exchange between Don and one of the children about how her father's real name is Sam Spade, or maybe Dolomite. But Dora seems genuinely unhappy, and Laura and Lolita are just amusingly quirky, which is not the same as joyful. Carmen is defensive about her life and has as her assistant the surliest character in the movie, played by Chloë Sevigny, who's good at the surly. Again, we never do find out what Penny's deal is. And as is usual for Bill Murray characters, at least of late, Don is just kind of lost. He doesn't really work anymore. His girlfriend is walking out on him because he makes her so unhappy. There's also no reason to believe that having a son will make Don any happier--or that finding his father will make the son any happier. It's almost as though none of them even know how to be happy, and Don doesn't seem capable of learning.

It's a quiet movie. To a certain degree, all film is voyeurism, and this is in many ways the uncomfortable kind. It's not that these people aren't capable of seeing that they aren't happy. I think they all know that, more or less. It's that they aren't capable of doing anything about it. It's as though all those people are trapped in lives they never expected. Winston may be the only one who knows the way out, but he doesn't really want one. Oh, one gets the impression that he'd rather be either a detective or a mystery writer, though he doesn't seem much to care which, but that's mostly only because he has no interest in working three jobs. And doing detective work just seems fun to him. Mostly, the others seem to have forgotten what fun even is. No, I can't see how Don's journey would ever be fun, but his life isn't, either. It's not that I dislike the music he listens to, but it's certainly worth noting that only the music Winston plays has any kind of rhythm.