Broken Flowers vs Memento

In Broken Flowers, Bill Murray plays a character named Don Johnston—note the “t”—and there's a curious, casual way he says his name. He knows some people will give him that look, as in “you mean like the actor?” Don uses this as a silent gauge. Whenever a character mentions Don's name (and after a few scenes of Broken Flowers, you'll be able to predict which ones will), Murray's face changes ever so slightly, letting us know who has and hasn't passed the test.

There aren't a lot of actors who can do that. Who can change a millimeter of his face to show us he's hearing a question for the millionth time. Who can look at a plate of cooked carrots and with just a twinge show us the entire process of deciding, If I just eat this whole plate of food in one bite, I bet I can leave five minutes earlier. Bill Murray, of course, is getting less and less like other actors with each passing film.

As Broken Flowers opens, Don's latest girlfriend (Julie Delpy) is leaving. He's been sitting on the couch the entire time she packed, and he tries to reason with her some, but you get the idea he's anxious to return to the couch. After she's gone, Don receives a letter. He has a nineteen-year-old son who wants to find his father, and the mother wants to give Don a heads-up. Don is perfectly content to sit on the couch (and director Jim Jarmusch is more than content to film him, just sitting there, without moving the camera, forever), but Don lives next door to Winston.

Winston (Jeffrey Wright) has the life that Don's ex might have liked: kids playing in the yard, a good-humored spouse inside making breakfast. Winston considers himself a detective, and considers Don's letter step one in their case. He wants to mount a full-scale investigation and find the mother of Don's son, before the son finds Don. The only clues they have so far, of course, are the envelope, which has no return address, and the letter, which has been typed. Winston has Don compile a list of his girlfriends from twenty years ago, and even though that couch sure looks good, Don goes along with the plan. He's got a car, some maps, and his memories. Winston directs him to bring flowers on each visit, and to look for more clues, like typewriters and pink envelopes. Jeffrey Wright is great as Winston. He rarely gets the opportunity to be funny, but he is here, and fills up all the empty spaces left by Murray's deadpan Don.

And so, from that point, Don's life becomes a series of episodes, as he finds and meets each girlfriend (one is deceased, but the others are right where Winston said they would be.) As the girlfriends, Jarmusch has gathered what could conceivably be next years Best Supporting Actress category. Besides Delpy, there's Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton. Each woman's life is frightening to Don in some way, although the reactions to him vary. Some welcome him warmly, some are suspicious, and at least one puts Don in immediate physical danger. The details of these visits are the highlights of Broken Flowers, so I won't spoil them. I will say, however, that of this impressive cast of girlfriends, it's Sharon Stone who stands out. It's true that she's the hot one, but for once she doesn't have to be the hot one, and it's like a weight has been lifted. I watched about a half hour of The Specialist the other night, and Stone is so awkward and posey and forcing the sexy that she reads like her own stand-in. Here, she's relaxed and funny, and when she laughs and tells Don, “We're having chicken for dinner,” it has a bigger effect than her previous decade of pouts and come-ons and she didn't even have to flash her beav.

What? What did I say? Come back. Don't be like that.

As Broken Flowers progresses, Don becomes slightly more energized, but he never fully dedicates himself to his mission. It's just another weekend, just a lark. Some days you spend sitting on the couch; some days you drive cross-country to find out which of your old girlfriends you had a son with. It's no big deal. Or maybe it's a huge deal, and Don's telling us that sitting on the couch is too. Either way, Bill Murray is at his best in Broken Flowers. There doesn't seem to be a lot going on; Murray's performance is quiet and beyond subtle. But when Don sits at the grave of that fifth girlfriend, we learn everything about his character we need to know.

Broken Flowers is ambiguous, almost frustratingly so, about Don's mission, whether it will be completed, whether he'll get the right answers. He meets a few younger guys who could possibly be his son. One in particular bonds with Don over a sandwich in an alley, and we see that maybe Don could be a good father, if he had to. But, if he doesn't have to, well then there's always that huge couch and that sweet flatscreen TV, and maybe Winston's wife will make something good for dinner.

Don's trip in Broken Flowers is mainly comedic, but change just a couple details, and it's a thriller. How about this: instead of Don looking for the mother of his child, he's looking for her killer? And what if Don forgets everything you tell him after a couple minutes, so he covers himself in homemade tattoos as reminders? What if Don's maybe a little crazy? What if maybe he doesn't exist? What if he's some other dude altogether, sitting in an asylum somewhere? What if Joey Pants is his only friend? I'm thinking that couch is looking pretty good about now. In Broken Flowers, Winston treats Don's roadtrip as if it were a life and death mission. As if this case could be busted wide open if only Don could locate a red typewriter ribbon. Poor Winston; he thinks he's in Memento.

I'm not going to be helping Memento much by talking about it. The more you talk about it, the more it sounds like a gimmick, and it's really so much more than that. The movie is told backwards, but it's told backwards scene-by-scene, so that each moment in a scene happens chronologically, but each scene is shown in reverse order. Got it? It works, trust me. And since the main character has a memory disorder, each scene that follows reveals something that he's already forgotten, and we're left thinking, “Why didn't you write that down?”

Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, who witnessed the murder of his wife and was quickly struck with a post-traumatic-stress-ish memory block. He knows his wife was murdered, he knows he has the memory problem, but he doesn't remember, say, talking to you on the sidewalk five minutes ago. So he takes notes, and Polaroids, and leaves meticulous tattoos on his body as reminders. His only ally is a bartender named Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss, getting more to do than ever, and excelling). He's also in line with a character played by Joe Pantoliano, so you know that won't end well.

Memento was directed by Christopher Nolan, who balances the trickiness of the plot structure by heaping on more trickiness. Inside the backwards framework, we get black and white flashbacks, voice over and subliminal cuts and images. If you get the deluxe DVD, you can watch it chronologically, but the mystery remains, as does the excellent performance by Guy Pearce, who, like Bill Murray, speaks volumes with tiny gestures, and speaks not at all when it's not completely necessary.

Broken Flowers: A
Memento: A