Review of Stranger Than Paradise (1984) by David G — 15 Jul 2014

Director Jim Jarmusch's second feature film is about three young people. One is Willie who is a Hungarian immigrant. His cousin Eva comes from Budapest to stay with him and he is not happy about it and treats her pretty cold. His friend Eddie likes Eva and treats her much better. The movie follows the three in three distinct acts that are pretty interesting.

I understand the praise this movie gets for it's technical aspects, but as a story it is pretty simple. That is okay though, because I think a lot of art actually works really well when it is minimal. The movie comes off as very drab and shows three young adults who are kind of lost with no real direction in life. In that regard it is actually very similar to Jarmusch's first movie "Permanent Vacation". The three main characters think that traveling somewhere better or warmer will make them happy, but realistically it is their own attitudes and mistakes that keep them from being happy.