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Broken Flowers (2005)

Bill Murray , Sharon Stone , Jim Jarmusch  |  R |  DVD
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (219 customer reviews)

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Product Details

  • Actors: Bill Murray, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton
  • Directors: Jim Jarmusch
  • Writers: Jim Jarmusch
  • Producers: Jon Kilik, Stacey Smith
  • Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
  • Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Universal Studios
  • DVD Release Date: January 3, 2006
  • Run Time: 106 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (219 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000BX8R10
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,156 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "Broken Flowers" on IMDb

Special Features

  • Girls in the Bus
  • Broken Flowers: Start to Finish
  • Original Theatrical Trailer
  • Soundtrack Information

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Bill Murray gives yet another simple, seemingly effortless, yet illuminating performance in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. Don Johnston (Murray, Lost in Translation, Rushmore) receives an anonymous letter telling him that he has a 19 year old son who's looking for him. Don only decides to investigate at the prompting of his neighbor Winston (the indispensable Jeffrey Wright, Shaft, Basquiat), who not only tracks down the current addresses of the possible mothers, he plans Don's entire trip down to the rental cars. Almost against his will, Don finds himself knocking at the doors of four very different women (Sharon Stone, The Quick and the Dead; Frances Conroy, Six Feet Under; Jessica Lange, Sweet Dreams; and Tilda Swinton, The Deep End) who were once his lovers. Part road movie, part detective story, part existential meditation, Broken Flowers is even more minimalist than most Jarmusch movies (Stranger Than Paradise, Dead Man, Mystery Train)--anyone looking for an easy resolution should look elsewhere. But for anyone willing to let a movie be a poem as much as a story--i.e., let it observe behavior without explaining it--Broken Flowers will offer a wealth of mysteries, gestures, and Bill Murray's soulful eyes. It's a movie that's wonderfully eloquent about what's not being said. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Bill Murray, Sharon Stone. A comical depiction of the life of a wealthy, emotionless Don Juan character who must face his sordid past loaded with bad judgments when he gets a letter informing him that he may have an illegitimate 19-year-old son. Murray is at his best! 2005/color/106 min/R/widescreen.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 36 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Reality TV should be this good May 23, 2006
Format:DVD
For filmgoers who are looking for a funny Bill Murray movie like Caddy Shack, you will be disappointed. But if you can watch this film just for the pure joy of watching the collision of the baggage of the past meeting the present and the fun that ensues, then you will really appreciate this wonderful film.

Jarmusch unravels the illusion of "Don Juan" as Don faces the fact that his past lovers are either uncomfortable with him or he's uncomfortable with them and none of them are forthcoming with any information as to whether he's left a trail of kids behind.

Until your middle aged and reflect on the past and realize the choices you've made are what molded your present situation, AND see that perhaps you could have made better choices, then this film won't make any sense to you. Jarmusch beautifully photographs (and scripts) the accident that is 21st century "middle age" for a man who's fought his way through a quagmire of womens lib, empowerment, equality, the pill, feminism and every other end of the 20th century battle of the sexes that has left the modern male alone, childless and confused.

Jarmusch's style is to just points his camera at the characters and let this reality unfold... subtly - and it's unpredictable, funny, sad, scary, absurd, awkward and beautiful all at the same time.

Like reality, don't expect a happy or easy ending. By the time the final scene rolls, neither the view nor Don knows if he really HAS a son or not, if he really WANTS to have a son or not, or if every time he turns around and sees a young man about 19 years old - is he going to wonder... is that kid mine?

For all around fun and unexpected surprises in human dynamics, Jim Jarmusch is a modern master. Plus he scores huge on three major cinematic points in all his movies:

1. his choice of actors with their dramatic and textured faces is always surprising.

2. his choice of soundtrack is always hip and cool

3. he films the US roadside like no one else

And like Jarmusch's other films, Broken Flowers doesn't disappoint.
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165 of 209 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Makes you think.... September 3, 2005
Jarmusch's movie is startling and bold, in a somnolent sort of way. Jarmusch is all about symbolism, and Murray is perfect for the role of Don Johnston, a wealthy bachelor who lives through life, seemingly emotionless. His angst over losing girlfriend Julie Delpy at the film's beginning, is buried deeply, and shown only in the way he sleeps and wakes...a deadish man who makes a feeble attempt to talk Delpy into staying. As she leaves, the mail she leaves contains a letter from an old lover who doesn't identify herself, other than to say that Johnston has a son who is 19 years old.

Enter Don's neighbor, Winston (the very capable Jeffrey Wright). His life is 180 degrees away from his friend Don's. His house, bursting at the seams with his glowing wife and 5 children, is full of toys. Despite the fact that he has three jobs, he is writing a mystery novel. Don's mysterious letter (in a pink envelope) is a goldmine for Winston, and he determines that Don will pursue this mystery, and must provide a list of potential mothers - lovers from 20 years prior.

From the reluctantly prepared list Winston culls not only addresses, he mapquests the instructions to reach each house and books Don's flights and rental cars. Don is reluctant, but can't afford to turn down this slice of life that Winston offers. He embarks on the journey.

The movie breaks down a little for me here...the repetitive shots of Don flying in and out of airports get on one's nerves, particularly since Don never seems to go anywhere different. The five women are all located off the beaten path from each airport, and Jarmusch is careful not to identify the cities with landmarks. In truth, the scenery is so similar for each location (kind of an upstate NY-Jersey-PA small town trip) that you wonder if Jarmusch is making a statement about the fact that all of Don's loves have chosen similar scenery, or if perhaps the film just didn't have enough funding to make the womens' locations more diverse. A nagging point for me.

There's a running small gag about Don's rental cars and hotels...although he can afford much better, Winston has economized with different color Ford Taurus' and chain motels located off busy highways. The audience picks up on Don's silent notation of Winston's predicted clues; a woman who likes pink, signs of a young man in the house (in this case, the existence of a basketball hoop in each location).

Following Winston's plan, Johnston drops in on the four women from his past (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton). In these scenarios, Jarmusch focuses on the color pink...they color of the flowers Johnston invariably brings to each of the women, following Winston's orders, and the increasing focus on the color he encounters from each visit. Each woman is more and more intense, and each vignette turns up the volume on the symbolism of the color. Johnston is greeted unfailingly with surprise, as though each of the women knew that, by his choice, he would never see them again (out of sight and out of mind; younger women are available!).

These vignettes with the women shed some light on Johnston, but Jarmusch, I was led to believe, shot them with the focus on the women themselves, and not Johnston's reaction to them.

As Laura, Sharon Stone is lush and cheap- her daughter Lolita shows sexual significance and eroticism that the viewer believes she copies from her mother. Young Lolita shocks even the jaded Johnston. With only a daughter, clearly Laura did not send the letter. Laura's wantonness and availability lead Johnston to spend the night; a decision he clearly regrets in the morning. Stone is as "dead on" in her portrayal as an actress can be.

Frances Conroy, as Dora, shows rapid aging and deterioration found in women married to a control freak who successfully subjugates them without abuse or violence. Ron (Christopher McDonald, who has appeared in countless roles on TV), the monstrous husband, has her in a cookie cutter house and sneers at the picture of the young Dora in hippie garb and flowers, that she keeps to remind her of who she once was. It is unclear if Dora has a child...she responds that she has no children with Ron. Johnston is understandably uncomfortable in this house where violence simmers behind the carefully groomed shrubs and carefully groomed owners. He leaves after being forced to stay for dinner. Jarmusch again uses quiet symbolism in the food Johnston is served...it clearly reflects the life that Dora now leads.

Jessica Lange has always been a powerful actress, and hers is a rich role. An attorney when he knew her, Lange's Carmen is now in the field of veterinary medicine - but she doesn't treat the animals, she talks to them, and analyzes them emotionally. Unlike the former two women, the sense is that Johnston was deeply involved with Carmen, and that the regrets that they are no longer together are his, not hers. Carmen is an overachiever; she's bitter; she's removed herself from any emotion and she doesn't want to explain herself to Don. A malevolent force in Carmen's life is Chloe Sevigny, who plays her office assistant, and the guardian of Carmen's forbidding castle.

Swinton's cameo is almost gone before the cameras catch it, but in her desolate backwoods world, pink is startling and pouring out of nooks and crannies in the house and landscape. She's drawn by the site of Don immediately to anger and violence. The viewer is surprised, given her surroundings and her actions, when Don says..."you left me, Penny". Johnston is subjected to an attack by her friends, and finds himself broken and sad, finally expressing emotion, visiting the graveside of Michelle, the last of the women he identified for Winston. It's possible that the son in question may have come from the liaison with either Penny or Michelle.

There are a couple of dream sequences strewn in Don's journey, startling in that the viewer really doesn't understand what they mean or why they are filmed. As the journey proceeds, Don becomes more and more aware of young men in their late teens - the final sequences, which are frustrating for some(in that they provide no answer to the mystery), deal with his encounters with them, and his summary for Winston.

Murray plays his detached, nuanced character from "Lost in Translation", with perhaps a less effective script. Supporting performances are crystal clear and the players are visibly more engaged than is Murray's. Winston is a delight, and each one of the actresses must have yearned for the richness of the character they finally get to play on the screen in middle-aged cameos. Symbolism, as noted before, abounds. Sometimes it gives the viewer food for thought, and sometimes it just gets in the way.

At the end of the film (which has a subtle and fitting score), I was absorbed, involved, and vaguely unsure of why. I was also curious about why Murray's character gets so deeply involved in the quest for the young man; obviously, Jarmusch is conveying self-discovery, but there is no joy at all in the process, at least none on view for this filmgoer.

Jarmusch has created a successful film for small theater venues, and art houses, that is being picked up around the country as a feature film, given the success of "Lost in Translation". That's dangerous, because many will attend looking for Murray's comedy and grow angry at the "waste of film" and lack of action in what is really a superb small film. Thus, look for a lot of 1 and 2 star reviews for the movie, but if you are a serious follower of films that make you think, see "Broken Flowers".

4 stars.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Film By... December 7, 2005
Format:DVD
If I had to name one actor who best embodied the qualities of a Robert Bresson film, Bill Murray would be it. Bresson, in case you're unfamiliar with the name, was one of the directors who helped to inspire the French New Wave of the 50's and 60's. His credits include such classics as Pickpocket, A Man Escaped and Au Hasard Balthazar. I mention this not because he's the director of Murray latest star vehicle (that would be indie icon Jim Jarmusch) or because I want to name-drop some of my all-time favorite films (okay, maybe a little of the latter), but because in recent years Murray's taken on a persona that could be described as positively Bressonian.

In fact, this goes all the way back to his first dramatic turn in The Razor's Edge. What he does, and what directors like Bresson and Carl Dreyer always advocated, is he wipes all expression from his face, thus leaving it to the audience to project their own emotions onto the character. I expect this will probably be terribly frustrating for audiences expecting another Caddyshack or Stripes, but if you're not inclined to check your brain at the concession stands (and there are fewer and fewer of us these days), you're in for one of the best performances and one of the best movies of 2005. In other words, don't expect to get more out of this film than you're willing to put into it.

Murray, in a role sure to draw comparisons to his Oscar-nominated performance in Lost in Translation, stars Don Johnston, as an aging womanizer who receives an anonymous letter informing him that he has an illegitimate son who may be trying to find him. Egged on by his best friend and neighbor (the always great Jeffrey Wright) to revisit four of his ex-flames and find out which is the mother of his son, Don is understandably reluctant at first. Reluctant, because not all of these relationships ended well, as we soon find out.

But eventually, having nothing better to do (we're told he made his money in computers), he allows himself to be persuaded and sets out on his journey. Along the way we're introduced to four very distinct personalities (played by Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton), all of whom shine in relative small roles, hopefully reminding Hollywood of how many great 40-something actresses there are who are still deserving of choice parts.

Which brings me to the ending. What struck me most about it was the way in which the young man Don suspects of being his son reacts when confronted with the possibility. At first, this seemed to me the appropriate response to being told by a perfect stranger that he may be your father. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that he overreacted, as if he was expecting what was coming and had his response planned out in advance. Am I reading too much into this? Possibly. But it's also interesting to note that the 'Kid in Car,' as he's billed in the closing credits, is Murray's actual son, Homer.

Is there a code to deciphering the film's enigmatic finale? In the end, it doesn't really matter, because the movie is less interested in the destination than in the journey it took to get there. And rightly so. It's refreshing in this day of cookie cutter movie-making to find a director more intent on posing serious questions than in providing pat questions, especially when the questions offered up are more interesting when left to us to answer for ourselves.

But, of course, Jim Jarmusch has always been anything but conventional. Starting with 1980's Permanent Vacation, he's amassed one of the most idiosyncratic resumes of any film-maker I can think of. And in Murray, like Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola before him, he may have found his muse, the actor capable of taking his deadpan humor and pathos, which have been hallmarks of his films for the last twenty years, and making them feel almost transcendent. This is certainly his most accessible movie to date, but it also may be his best.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars alexis dziena as lolita
i dont care about the rest of this dull movie. skip to the lolita scene and put on repeat and ENJOY!!!!!! i am a huge bill murray fan. Read more
Published 1 day ago by enigmatic aethers
5.0 out of 5 stars Bill Murray at his best
Everyone has seen Bill Murray in his comedic roles. He is an utter genius when it comes to humor, and he has a vast number of movies under his belt as a comic actor. Read more
Published 1 month ago by B. Kirschner
4.0 out of 5 stars CLASSIC MURRAY
Bill Murray gives a great performance of a man whose life monetarily successful but is void of real, lasting love. I think he captures the role perfectly. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Frisco Moses
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting movie!
Bill Murray is a wonderful actor, whose range is expansive! I will enjoy watch this. Please enjoy your week!
Norma
Published 2 months ago by Norma E.Hardy
1.0 out of 5 stars It made me sleepy.
Several years ago, when this film was released, I paid 35 bucks for a ticket to attend a live interview with Jim Jarmusch, the director of this film, at NYU with my buddy, Mike. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Robert M. Khoury
2.0 out of 5 stars ground hog murray
Really went in expecting a smart, sophisticated story like Lost In Translation. What it is is a very inferior movie with Bill trying hard not to be trying hard. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Lologuy
4.0 out of 5 stars Lost loves Character study
Engaging tale about a guy who receives an unsigned letter from a former lover who tells him they had a child together and the child is 18 now and may come looking for him! Read more
Published 10 months ago by ellison
2.0 out of 5 stars Poor -
My first point - Bill Murray's performance detracts from the film. He's a 'downer' from start to finish. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Loyd E. Eskildson
3.0 out of 5 stars Sad, Plodding, Dark Cloud Leaves Several Unresolved Questions in its...
Bill Murray puts on the sad clown face in one of his drearier roles. It's a black comedy at heart, with an eye cast to the implications of paternity and an increasingly weird... Read more
Published 15 months ago by drqshadow
2.0 out of 5 stars Promising premise but doesn't deliver
Good idea---aging Don Juan, now named Don Johnston, who is watching a film about the real Don Juan sits, in his sleazy running suit, eyes fixed on the tube, while his very pretty... Read more
Published 15 months ago by R. Swanson
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