I have seen the movie tonight and it wasn't pretty.

I suppose in future, Dolce and I can agree to disagree when it comes to drama flicks, hehe. The past examples of our disagreements include The Pianist and Bad Education. This is not an exception. If I did not say that it was not only this year's most disappointing, but also one of this year's worst movies, I would be lying.

It has been quite a while that an ending to a movie made me mad, simply mad. Actually the last time might have been The Village. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one thinking the same. I saw the movie in a well-filled theatre with at least 80-90 other people in it and when the screen faded to black, I could hear a couple of groans and discontent talking around me.

As for the movie itself, it must have been one of the dullest (not the worst, though) experiences I have had in a theatre since, well, Bad Education. I had a similar problem with this one as I had with the other. It just seemed very pointless with its intentions and was moving to nowhere most of the time. None of Don's encounters with his previous girlfriends impressed me. Funnily enough, there was one scene in this movie that I found outstanding and that actually touched me. It was the scene when Bill Murray lays down the flowers on the grave of his dead ex-girlfriend and sits down next to it with slight tears in his eyes. It was probably the only emotionally involving scene in the entire movie. All the other ones seemed pretty dull and hollow, especially emotions-wise.

Moreover, I haven't seen LiT or Life Aquatic, but I must say that from what I have seen in BF, I am not a big fan of Murray's being a deadpan with his face-expressions. Just didn't come across to me as great acting, but actually somewhat forced. So many scenes in this movie seem just to be space-fillers, like minute-long shots of Murray driving a car and so on. Pretentious, if you ask me. A positive aspect of the film, though, was its music (which was also pretty much the only thing I liked about Bad Education).

Out of the rest of the cast, the only one who made a good impression on me was Frances Conroy as Dora, the ex-hippie. The rest was pretty bland altogether. Just like the movie itself.

Jeffrey Wright was decent as Winston and provided a few laughs in this movie which, considering it's a dramedy, had neither enough comedy nor enough drama in it to be a satisfying experience. There was lots of potential and almost none of it was fully explored.

Don't even get me worked up abput the ending. I am not against abrupt endings like in Sideways or A History of Violence, but this one definitely did not seem of the kind that would need an unresolved ending because in the end we are just left with nothing. Even the main character, Don, does not get enough character development in the movie.

Jim Jarmush has been a hit/miss for me so far and this one continues the trend. I dispised A Night on Earth, but loved Ghost Dog. Dead Man is in the middle. I thought it was good, but not outstanding. Broken Flowers is definitely not as bad as A Night on Earth, but doesn't even come close to either Dead Man or Ghost Dog. One last thiong needs to be said and that is that Jim Jarmush has an excellent taste for music in his films. After Ghost Dog and Dead Man, Broken Flowers confirms it once again.


My grade would be a C