Broken Flowers

Director- Jim Jarmusch

Cast- Bill Murray, Sharon Stone

Country of Origin- U.S.
 

Distributor - Kino Lorber

Number of discs –  1

Reviewed by - Scott MacDonald

Date- 06/11/2019

    Broken Flowers follows Bill Murray as Don Johnston. He is a former playboy that finds himself older and alone, as his latest girlfriend Sherry has recently left him.  At the same time he gets an anonymous letter in the mail telling him of his son that he was unaware existed, and that the boy is looking for his Father who he also knows nothing about.  With the assistance of Geoffrey Wright's Winston, Don is given a plan to fly to all the cities that his girlfriend around the time of his child's birth would be found, and check in with them, in order to figure out the validity of the anonymous claim.

    Broken Flowers was the first "new" Jim Jarmusch film I saw in theaters after becoming a fan of the director in the early 2000's.  I remember at the time being disappointed as I found myself more of a fan of his earlier works like Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law. That being said the film has grown on me over the decade since. It shows the continued evolution of Jarmusch's "house style", with its minimalist direction and dead pan performances.

    Jarmsuch brings together an amazing cast including Bill Murray, Sharon Stone, Chloe Sevigny amongst others. The performances in this film are absolutely fantastic, but with a cast like this one that would be seemingly easy.   Each of the 4 segments of the film, each give a different tonal quality, some bring about a joyous easy reunion, while others feel awkward, or angry.  Jarmusch handles the various tones very well and the film has a consistent feel and balance, while never wasting one moment of screen time.

    Kino Lorber issues Broken Flowers on a quite solid Blu-ray with a 1080p AVC encoded transfer at it's core. The image here looks crisp and clean, is well detailed, and has no obvious issues. Audio is handled an English track that is clear and audible. Extras are limited to a few things a featurette, deleted scenes, and outakes.  Broken Flowers is a marvelous deadpan comedy from director Jarmusch and the Blu-ray from Kino Lorber brings it to Blu-ray wonderfully. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.