Review of Intermission (2003) by Mike L — 02 Sep 2005

Now these movies have nothing to do with each other (well I suppose they're both indepent movies with big name stars in them but that's not the point) but I just lumped them together anyway. Both of them are endearing but not perfect.

Broken Flowers is the new film by the maverick of the weird indie, Jim Jarmusch. Very few people who don't worship independent film (I personally only get into like 2 indie films a year) have ever heard of him, I only did because of last year's Coffee and Cigarettes. But I'm glad a made an exception for this movie. It's a tale of a melancholy, former ladies man in his late middle age (Bill Murray) who learns he may have fathered a son almost 20 years ago through an anonymous pink letter, his crazy neighbor/friend Winston (the hilarious, scene-stealing Jeffery Wright) sends him unwillingly on a quest to find out which of his old girlfriends sent the letter. On the way he meets up with a very talented group of actresses including but not limited to: Sharon Stone (the first fi;m I've ever liked her in), Jessica Lange (in a rare comedic role as an accredited "animal communicator"), and Tilda Swinton. The film's brilliance is in it's silence. I love acting that is done without dialogue, that you can just read deeply into the character by the way he/she acts, and Murray has become a master of that in this film. The film thankfully also comes with a non-standard, non-fairy tale ending that may leave some mainstream audiences unsatisfied. Hilarious, and heart breaking, Broken Flowers is well worth your time and money to check out.

Intermission was a film I wanted to see when it was released last year but it never really came to any theaters I like to visit. I finally got around to watching it earlier this evening. It's an intertwining narrative with about 11 storylines and 54 characters running throughout them (according to the DVD packaging.) It's very hard to describe but it's also well worth your time with some great acting by Colm Meany, Shirley Henderson and Colin Farrell as well as the now "rising star" Cillian Murphy, who I was a big fan of after 28 Days Later but before he blew up in the U.S. mainstream with his brilliant performance as the Scarecrow/Dr. Johnathan Crane in Batman Begins, I still have to see him with the gorgeous Rachel McAdams. Cillian Murphy stands out above the rest as a lovelorn young man with no direction in his life who could have the girl of his dreams if only he could tell that to her. It's a tale of love, lust, and petty crime that I can't wait to see again. It's impossible to describe, you have to experience it for yourself.