Broken Flowers
In theatersWHAT IT'S ABOUT Director Jim Jarmusch's latest, which won the Grand Prix (second to the Palme d'Or) at last May's Cannes film festival, follows Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a wealthy, commitment-phobic bachelor whose life consists of sitting glumly on his couch, ''looking to be alive,'' as the actor puts it. But then Don receives an anonymous letter from an ex-lover informing him that he has a 19-year-old son. Egged on by his neighbor, a Columbo wannabe played with gusto by Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America), Don reluctantly sets out on a road trip to reconnect with the former flames who could be the child's mother — four very different exes played by Sharon Stone (pictured, with Murray), Tilda Swinton, Jessica Lange, and Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy.
WHY WE LIKE IT Pared down to the point of minimalism, Murray's work in Broken Flowers is the latest in the rich and nuanced roles he has inhabited in recent years. ''I wanted to do something where Bill had a different kind of range as a character,'' Jarmusch explains. ''His face is like an orchestra of emotional tones and textures. He can do so many things with very little.'' Stone is equally generous in describing her costar. ''He reminds me of the balls Bogart holds in his hand in The Caine Mutiny,'' she says. ''You know they're about something. You don't know where they're gonna go, and you can't take your eyes off them.''
BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE Look no further than Jarmusch, who, for the past 25 years, has blissfully kept to the fringes of American cinema, writing and directing such diamonds in the rough as 1984's Stranger Than Paradise and 1999's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. ''I like to remain in the shadows with the other vampires, '' the 52-year-old filmmaker says — but he may have to get used to life outside the crypt. Though unmistakably Jarmuscian in its understated, funny-sad sensibility, Broken Flowers might prove his most accessible film to date. Thanks to Focus Features, it's poised to reach a bigger U.S. audience than any of Jarmusch's previous efforts: On Aug. 5, it will hit 18 target markets — not just the usual New York and L.A. — and expand from there.
INSIDER INFO Shot over seven weeks last fall in various locations within 100 miles of Murray's New York home (the towns are left intentionally vague to capture what Jarmusch calls the ''generica'' of certain parts of the States), Broken Flowers demanded a lot of its star, who appears in nearly every scene. Murray admits the work was tough. ''I don't have any great speeches, machine guns, or any kind of action thing going on,'' he says. ''My responsibility is to represent how I'm affected by what happens. And the only way to do that is with my body. It was difficult. I think it's advanced for any actor to take away their lines and see what they can do. But there's a real purity in getting yourself out of the way and letting your vessel, so to speak, do the work for you.''
YOU MIGHT LIKE IT IF YOU LIKED... Murray's similarly complex, Oscar-nominated turn in 2003's Lost in Translation
(This is an online-only excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's Aug. 5, 2005, cover story.)
