BROKEN FLOWERS - JIM JARMUSCH

Don Johnston is a well-behaved bachelor, an ex-Don Juan still loved by women. An old business related to computers got him a lot of money, so he doesn’t need to work anymore. He has that nice, quiet life any American would dream of. Yet, Don is a very faithful version of long-face Droopy. Dominated by this probably metaphysical sadness (because the director Jarmusch does not give any physical explanation for the depression), almost caricatural, Don is just watching his plasma TV, all vegetative, or listening to classical music, while life is passing him by.

His beautiful, stary-eyes girlfriend, Sherry, all dressed in pink and optimistic, lefts him. He doesn’t seem to mind. But at the same time he gets a strange note, on pink paper, written on a typewriter. He learns that he has a son. A 20 years old son from an old affair. And that son of his left to search him. The note is not signed. So the setting is made. Don is a tired man, lacks any kind of obligation and with enough enough money to allow it to go in search of the woman who sent the letter. And yet, what was already expected taking into account the general attitude of the character, there was need for another impetus to force him to leave. It comes from his friend, Winston, who organizes absolutely all the details, starting with the plane tickets, addresses of the five potential mothers, to the reservation to the hotel.
The road-movie is typical for films of Jarmusch, an initiative trip through America, in which Don tries to rediscover himself. Each of the former girlfriends describes a stage in his life, and we get to discover the hippie, joyful, interesting man he used to be. He has the sense of humor, charm, even beyond the minimalist interpretation of Bill Murray.
The life of these women comes in contrast to the his life What captures perhaps the most attention is that the public has the opportunity to engage in detective work alongside the character, make predicting and gambling hall on the outcome of the investigation. Yet, probably to many’s disapontment, he doesn’t get to find who the mother is.

The end can be disappointing for those who are not used to the kind of conclusion usually addressed by Jarmusch. We can invision the tormented future of Don, who didn’t get to meet his son, and who will always look twice at all the 19 years boys, thinking one of them could be his. It is the kind of kick he needed to get off the couch and change his life.