With no emotional conflict, no character revelation and only minimalist acting and episodic direction, Broken Flowers is as flat as Bill Murray’s motel-room beds.
Broken Flowers (2005)
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Reviews Counted:181
Fresh:157
Rotten:24
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: Bill Murray's subtle and understated style complements director Jim Jarmusch's minimalist storytelling in this quirky, but deadpan comedy.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Aug 5, 2005 Limited
Box Office: $13,578,173
Synopsis: With BROKEN FLOWERS, staunchly independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch delivers one of his most pleasing, accessible pictures. Winner of the 2005 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the film tells... With BROKEN FLOWERS, staunchly independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch delivers one of his most pleasing, accessible pictures. Winner of the 2005 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the film tells the story of Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a man overflowing with wealth but void of emotion. On the day that his most recent girlfriend (Julie Delpy) has given up on him for good, he learns, through an anonymous letter, that he might be the father of a 19-year-old boy. Spurned into action by his wannabe private eye neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), Don sets off on a personal journey to visit the former partners who may or may not have mothered his child. They include the flighty Laura (Sharon Stone), whose daughter Lolita (Alexis Dziena) certainly lives up to her name; the uptight Dora (Frances Conroy), who has settled into a sterile life with her chipper husband, Ron (Christopher McDonald); the strangely distant Carmen (Jessica Lange), who makes a living as an "animal communicator;" and, finally, Penny (Tilda Swinton), a hard-edged biker who is the least happiest to see Don. Each confrontation leaves Don feeling more lost than the last, spinning him into an even greater state of apathetic confusion. In typical Jarmusch fashion, he wrote the script for BROKEN FLOWERS with his casting firmly in mind: only Murray could play this role. The result showcases Murray's brilliance as a less-is-more presence. Jarmusch also gives some of Hollywood's most talented female actresses roles they can relish. A hundred percent Jarmusch, BROKEN FLOWERS is a wry, tender, and bittersweet portrait of a man who is drifting aimlessly through life. [More]
Starring: Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton
Starring: Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Jessica Lange
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Screenwriter: Jim Jarmusch
Producer: Jon Kilik, Stacey E. Smith, Jim Jarmusch
Studio: Focus Features
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Reviews for Broken Flowers
I doubt there's any other living actor who could turn a simple bit of business like eating sliced carrots into the summer's most exciting and cathartic action sequence.
Bill Murray delivers another master class in movie-acting minimalism.
No actor is better than Bill Murray as doing nothing at all, and being fascinating while not doing it.
Murray has been playing this role – the sad clown, the bitter and aloof lonely man – for a decade now.
Provides an anatomy of a middle-aged burned-out man who is led unwillingly to a place where he can get in touch with his feelings.
In the wasteland of August releases, this entry shines like a beacon lighting the way to a theater.
Treats of serious matters, but in a delightfully quirky and curiously affecting way.
...an imperfect but sometimes beautiful comic story about a man helplessly lost in his own life.
A Jarmuschian bouquet of episodic structure, desultory road-tripping, and droll dislocation, each comic setup as simple and plywood-dry a contraption as ever.
Jarmusch, himself approaching middle age, has Don looking back with Zen fortitude and deadpan sobriety, but what's missing from the film is sensitivity.
Broken Flowers is all of a piece; it’s maliciously observed, and it has a neat formal style. But it’s an art object without the energy or courage to be a work of art.
Quietly robust and keenly insightful in its melancholy mode... unconditionally infectious as a wry commentary mixing pathos and pleasure at the expense of an aging Don Juan
One of the smartest, funniest and most touching movies of the summer.
Sweetly peaceful & quirky, warmly awkward, daring, top not acting by Murray. But road shots drag, drab image quality distracts, climax wanes.
In a film about a lonely eccentric’s attempt to make sense of his alienation and bring order to his chaotic past, convention fits like a gray flannel suit.
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