FILM | Broken Flowers is a snooze-fest. 

Bill Murray in Broken Flowers, 2005.

I screened Broken Flowers on July 27^th, 2005 at the 5^th Ave. Cinemas in Vancouver. That was just about a week ago, and already I’m struggling to remember anything about the film that might be worth mentioning. I’m certainly struggling to call to mind anything I liked about it.

I know Bill Murray is popular.

I don’t particularly care for him, but for reasons unknown, he’s fast-becoming some sort of hipster icon. Why? Search me. I can’t begin to understand it. Maybe one of you can tell me?

If forced to make comparisons (which I am), I’d say that Broken Flowers is kind of like Garden State meets High Fidelity, except it’s boring and both of those films were pretty good. 

Broken Flowers is about Don Johnston (Murray), a Don Juan type who gets an anonymous letter saying he’s got a 19-year-old son.

Wait, this sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it? I think I may have seen this story play out before. (Snooze.) At the urging of his neighbour (ah, a neighbour – always such a believable relationship) Don goes on a past-loves quest to sniff out the boy’s mother. Now you see what I mean about High Fidelity. (Snore.) Apparently the kid’s age wasn’t enough of a clue.

The Broken Flowers story has got potential, but it just doesn’t pan out.

The film relies heavily on the assumption that if it says very little, we’ll all draw our own (deep and meaningful) conclusions. It’s important to let viewers and readers do a bit of the work, sure, but this film makes us do all of it.

And frankly, excessively long shots of Murray’s sad, aged countenance does not a meaningful movie make. The short version? This film is just too much work to be fun. (Zzzz.)

A very short version of this Broken Flowers movie review published in Dose on August 5, 2005. The clip can be seen below. More film and tv stuff is here. General reviews are here.

Published in Dose, August 5, 2005.