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Broken Flowers (2005) movie analysis and review

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Broken Flowers is a 2005 movie, starring Bill Murray, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Chloe Sevigny, and other actors. Bill Murray plays a bachelor, named Don Johnston, who has never been married, and the movie starts out with his current girlfriend dumping him because he seems noncommittal. Soon after, he receives a mysterious letter inside a pink envelope. The letter is from an old girlfriend and she tells him that he has a 19-year-old son looking for him, but she doesn’t leave a name or return address. He discusses the letter and envelope with his friend, and they decide that he should visit his old girlfriends’ house to do some research and look for clues. Some clues include bright pink items and the letter was typed with a typewriter. As he visits four old girlfriends, he notices bright pink clues in their homes as well as other clues, but none of them say that they have a 19-year-old son. He notices a young man traveling alone at the airport, and he decides to buy him lunch, thinking he could be the mysterious son. They chat together while he eats, and he realizes that his young man doesn’t seem to be looking for his father.

The movie is open-ended, but it ends with the man giving the young guy advice to live in the present moment because the past is gone and who knows what will happen in the future. I thought it was interesting that Bill Murray’s character has the same personality as his role in Lost in Translation, which is a disconnected man who appears to be elsewhere because of vacant eyes and lack of expression on his face.

An old VW Beetle drives by Bill Murray’s character Don, and the young man in the passenger seat sticks his head out of the window and just stares at Don. I noticed that this chubby young man has Bill Murray’s round face and Bill’s facial features. And, later, I find out that this young man was played by Homer Murray. (I wonder if that is Bill Murray’s real son, who was playing Don mysterious son looking for him, in which Don never meets). The movie has interesting twists and coincidences that you are not sure what to think. It could have been any of these women, but none admitted to having his baby boy around 19 years ago. And, all the women didn’t want to do anything with him because they have moved on.

I give this movie a B+ because it was interesting and it got me wondering if he will meet his son by the end of the movie.

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