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In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Bill Murray began to cast off his well-known goofball image to take on some more complex roles. There were some earlier experiments, like 1984’s historical drama The Razor’s Edge and as an intimidating mobster opposite Robert De Niro in 1993’s Mad Dog and Glory, but the transition became more permanent once he started working with Wes Anderson in 1998. Many of these roles still had plenty of humor, but it was usually through a more melancholy lens.
One of his best projects from this era doesn’t often get mentioned alongside Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, but it deserves to be: Broken Flowers, his first time working with writer/director Jim Jarmusch, which premiered on August 5th, 2005. A dryly funny film with a somber edge, Broken Flowers helped establish Murray as one of the go-to leading men of the 2000s indie boom, standing alongside Lost in Translation as some of his best work.
‘Broken Flowers’ Cross-Country Odyssey
Focus Features
Murray stars as Don Johnston, an aging lothario with a long list of former lovers, living a more subdued life after making a lot of money in the computer industry. One day, he gets a mysterious letter from one of those lovers claiming that he has an adult son who may be out looking for him. At the urging of his neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), he decides to visit his old flames and try to track the young man down himself. So Winston books him some plane tickets, gives him a collection of ultra-hip music, and sends him off.
The trip starts out pretty well, with Don reconnecting with his ex Laura (Sharon Stone), quickly finding himself back in her bed. Laura has a daughter named Lolita (Alexis Dziena, in the role that has probably aged the most poorly), but no son. Subsequent visits don’t go nearly as well, with his other exes, Dora (Frances Conroy) and Carmen (Jessica Lange), viewing him with pity or suspicion, while his final ex, Penny (Tilda Swinton), greets him with hostility. Don may not really find anything on his journey, other than reminders of who he used to be.
Jarmusch keeps the ending of the film deliberately vague, never really settling the question of who wrote Don the letter or where his son might be. Jarmusch actually had each of the actors playing Don’s exes write their own letter, combining all four for the final product, so that not even they knew which of them was the mother. This unsettled feeling permeates the whole film, as Don searches for some kind of closure that never really comes.
This approach might not sit right with some viewers, who may end up walking out of the film feeling like nothing really happened at all, but Broken Flowers isn’t really the type of movie that’s meant to be packed with plot. It’s probably one of Jarmusch’s most subdued films, and that’s saying a lot coming from the guy who made movies like Stranger Than Paradise or the hangout anthology Coffee and Cigarettes.
Why ‘Broken Flowers’ Is Murray at His Best
Focus Features
This subdued nature is probably one of the reasons that Broken Flowers isn’t talked about as much as some of Murray’s other projects from the same era, but it’s precisely what makes it, and his performance, so good. Murray’s dramatic work made such a splash because it gave him an opportunity to apply his gifts for understatement to a very different type of role. Characters like Rushmore’s Herman Blume or Lost in Translation’s Bob Harris have a lonely, haunted quality to them, where their sadness comes through even in their happier moments, and Broken Flowers fits right in with that company.
Don might have money and a long list of conquests, but he’s still a sad character, a guy whose best years are behind him, even if he hasn’t admitted it yet. He may seem content to sit around his house listening to Fela Kuti, but he seems incapable of having a deeper connection with anyone. He isn’t even all that broken up when his current girlfriend, Sherry (Julie Delpy), leaves him. He seems to float through his visits with his exes, demonstrating some of his old spark, but constantly being reminded that they’ve all moved on without him.
This isn’t to say that Broken Flowers is totally devoid of laughs, and it can actually be quite funny in a dry sort of way. Murray is one of the most gifted comic actors of all time, after all, and he gives Don a certain muted charm that makes it hard not to root for him. The rest of the cast is excellent too, with each of the actors playing the four exes creating distinct, fully lived-in characters without a lot of screen time. It may not be one of Murray’s better-remembered works, but it definitely deserves more love. And with the film reaching its 20th anniversary, now’s a perfect time to give it a watch.
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