DVD Review of the Week (1/8/2006)

Broken Flowers (4.5/5 stars)

This movie stars Bill Murray as a droll womanizer named Don Johnston (you can imagine the name mistakes) who, at the beginning of the movie, is left by his girlfriend (Julie Delphy) and soon afterwards receives a letter which at least temporarily changes his life. The letter, written anonymously, informs him that he has a nineteen year old son who may be out on a road trip trying to discover who his father is. Initially, he simply dismisses it.
At the urging of his neighbor (a hilarious Jeffrey Wright), who imagines himself either a detective or a fiction writer, we're not exactly sure, he embarks upon a quest to visit the women he was with around the time period to discover who the potential mother of his son is.

He brings them all pink flowers, because that is the color of the letter he was sent. He discreetly looks for evidence that one of them is the mother, without exactly giving away his intentions.

One woman is a professional closet organizer played by Sharon Stone, with a daughter named Lolita who has eyes for Don. Another is a prefabricated home seller played by Francis Conroy (Six Feet Under) who has a painting of an exact replica of her house inside her living room. Next is an "animal communicator" played by Jessica Lange. At one point her cat (who, by the way, looks just like my cat did, but without the white feet) stares Don down. The cat accuses Don of having a hidden agenda, interpreted through his ex, the animal communicator. Finally there is a biker girl played by Tilda Swinton, whose friends Don gets into a little trouble with.

Who is the mother of his son? That I won't say. What's more important is the interesting people we get to see along the way.