Father Mother Sister Brother

 

Writer/director Jim Jarmusch

Jarmusch at Venice

Jarmusch on the set

MOTHER FATHER SISTER BROTHER                B+                                                         USA  Italy  France Ireland  Germany  (110 mi)  2025  d: Jim Jarmusch

If too many people like a film I make, I feel like I’ve done something wrong.

I don’t know where the hell she came from in this case, but I generally bring an idea with me for about a year, sometimes more than one, until I finally start writing, very quickly.  In this case it took me three weeks.

My favorite thing is to wake up and have no plan.
—Jim Jarmusch

This is Jarmusch’s version of an Ozu film, exploring the personality-driven intricacies of complex family dynamics, where it’s all about the silences between the characters, as the emotional weight of the film is the exploration of that undiscovered interiority, creating a quietly contemplative aspect to the viewing experience, which seems like an anti-action, puzzle-piece counterpoint to what we’re used to seeing, funny, tender, and astutely observed, yet more than anything it feels personal and refreshingly honest, told in a triptych style, a technique often used in both cinema and literature, and a device he has used before, which is difficult to pull off as invariably some episodes are stronger than others.  In this case they are brilliantly blended together by editor Affonso Gonçalves, while shot in New Jersey, Dublin, and Paris by two extraordinary cinematographers, Frederick Elmes, who shot the first chapter, and Yorick Le Saux, who shot the second and third.  Like all Jarmusch films, this is an experience where nothing and everything happens all at once, where the key is deciphering the many clues hidden between the lines, as there’s plenty of deception or hidden secrets with parents who are protective of their children.  Strangely rejected by the Cannes Film Festival, many have dismissed this as a minor film, in much the way Haiku poetry is derided in the poetry world, too small, abstract, yet it still paints a vivid picture, suggesting there is something noble about the power of art, which can also be terribly deceptive.  This is indisputably the work of a mature artist growing older, grappling with their own sense of mortality, as this is simply where the mind wanders when you get older, feeling spacious and ponderous and completely unpretentious, where there’s something so ordinary and believable about it, with the filmmaker stating his goal, “We wanted to make a small, quiet film.”  Among the earliest and more memorable discoveries of this filmmaker came with the hard-to-find Mika Kaurismäki documentary film, TIGRERO: A FILM THAT WAS NEVER MADE (1994), with Sam Fuller bringing Jarmusch deep into Brazil’s Mato Grosso rain forest jungle, interacting with the Indigenous Karajá people, a group Fuller met and filmed in the mid 50’s for a film that was never made.  The hip modernism Jarmusch brings to such an isolated and secluded region is hard to fathom, as this presents him in a uniquely different light, seeing him in such a remote area wearing a Ramones T-shirt, literally expanding our conception of an artist.  Singer Tom Waits has been part of Jim Jarmusch’s regular cast since the utterly hilarious jailbreak-on-the-bayou movie, DOWN BY LAW (1986), while other notable films include the three-act STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1984), an example of plotless, low-budget, independent filmmaking, Mystery Train (1989), another triptych, a musical pilgrimage to Memphis, Tennessee, home of Sam Phillips and Sun Records, Night on Earth (1991), with five interconnecting, chance encounter stories involving a taxi cab driver and passengers in five cities, Dead Man (1995), an acid western, and still, arguably, his best film, GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (1999), a samurai assassin gangster flick, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2003), eleven vignettes connected by the titular theme, BROKEN FLOWERS (2005), a cross-country road trip reconnecting with former lovers, THE LIMITS OF CONTROL (2009), an immersion into the haunted, surreal atmosphere of a paid assassin, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), a vampire flick, Paterson (2016), a tribute to New Jersey poet William Carlos Williams via a modern day bus driver, and The Dead Don't Die (2019), another absurdist zombie movie.

Winner of the Golden Lion (1st place) at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, carefully constructed to allow small details to accumulate, reminding viewers just what it is to be a film poet, it opens with a hauntingly personalized, bass-heavy jazz performance of “Spooky” by British-German singer-songwriter Annika Henderson (aka Anika), Spooky YouTube (2:11), an original Classics IV song from 1967 that essentially establishes the mood and sets the stage for what follows.  Six years since his last feature, the first thing we notice is that Ozu’s pillow shot transitions (The enigmatic 'pillow shots' of Yasujiro Ozu) have been replaced by abstract flickering light passages between episodes, giving us some time to reflect upon what we see happening onscreen, with each of the three sections taking place in the home of a parent where their estranged children come to reconnect.  Opening on a windy, countryside road filled with bare trees and fresh snow on the ground, two siblings, Jeff and Emily (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik, apparently catching the eye of Jarmusch as his favorite Jeopardy host) chat amiably on their way to visit their widowed and reclusive father at his lake house, sharing their assessment that he’s not a very trustworthy figure in their lives, turning out to be none other than a grizzled old, confusing-looking Tom Waits, who provides the film’s most powerful performance.  Jeff seems concerned about his financial situation since the death of their mother, wondering how he’s getting by, leading a hermetic life, where everything appears run down, offering assistance when he can, bringing along a box of groceries, while Emily is more skeptical about just how dire his situation is.  The setting of the house, situated right on a lake, is to die for, where anyone would dream of living in a house like that, with the camera lingering on the giant-sized window overlooking the lake.  Nonetheless, the father mentions there are a multitude of needed repairs, but suggests he’s doing as well as he can, but seems to be playing the sympathy card.  Jeff falls for it hook, line, and sinker, while Emily is rather amused by it all, pointing out that he’s wearing an expensive Rolex watch, which the father quickly claims is a fake, where the real drama comes only after they’ve left, placing everything we’ve seen before in a different light.  The truism that Jeff reveals is that you can pick your lovers and friends, but you can’t choose your own family, which more than ever rings true in these interconnected segments.  Written by Jarmusch, this episode sets the tone for spare, minimalist dialogue, with plenty of embarrassing and uncomfortable pauses in between to convey emotional distance, balancing wry, offhanded humor with a steady drip of information, while always remaining understated and moody, with something of an abstract, rhythmic flow about it.  A choreography of interpersonal relationships, pondering whether we ever really know the people closest to us, it shares the methodology of South Korean director Hong Sang-soo films, the maker of small, minimalist dramas, as both filmmakers rely upon the power of observation, with no sentimentality and no false drama, devising intimate scenes with powerful performances where awkwardness prevails, replete with lies, resentment, and love, where this is like the antithesis of a Mike Leigh film, where so much of this would otherwise be so wrenchingly despairing.  What’s most amusing is that Waits has always had something of a subterranean Beat poet vibe, where even at this late stage in his life (age 76), he’s still got a rebellious streak.    

While this is something of an actor’s showcase, with the filmmaker allowing plenty of empty space and room to breathe, remaining subtle and impressive, with a keen eye for detail, yet it begs the question, when was the last time we really talked to our families?  The moving presence of skateboarders is a recurring motif, seen in slow motion directly in the middle of the country road in the opening, while darting in and out of the streets of Dublin and Paris in the next segments.  A contrast between this youthful endeavor and ruminations on mortality is immediately evident.  Two sisters who couldn’t be more diametrically different, a punkish, pink-haired Vicky Krieps as free-spirited Lillith and the much more uptight, conservatively-repressed, almost invisible presence of Cate Blanchett as Timothea reunite with their imperial mother (Charlotte Rampling), a successful novelist who refuses to speak about her work, for their annual afternoon tea, the only time all year when they actually get together, though they all live in Dublin.  Their relations are nothing less than strained, where it all feels so terribly formal, as the host mother has impeccably arranged finger food with an assortment of delectable pastries in an immaculate house where everything is in place.  The conversation feels distant and camouflaged, a chamber piece of passive-aggressiveness, with each daughter vying for attention while struggling with insecurities in their personal and professional lives.  All dressed in the color red, as if pre-arranged, Father Mother Sister Brother Exclusive Movie Clip - Color ... YouTube (2:07), the domineering mother, offering a sense of cold authority, appears to be very high maintenance, while her children come to represent unfulfilled expectations, which may have led to uncomfortable childhoods, so they fidget around nervously at the table, expressing some disquieting tension, where the picture of perfect décors hides what’s simmering underneath, leaving viewers undoubtedly perplexed by what’s not being said.  The final chapter is notable for the parents not being present, as Indya Moore as Skye and Luka Sabbat as Billy are twin black siblings cleaning out a Paris apartment following the mysterious death of their parents in a tragic airplane crash.  Their closeness is immediately evident, seen hugging, kissing, and holding hands as they meet in a café before visiting a now-empty apartment that Billy has taken great care to save all the belongings, seen in an excursion to a local storage locker, but it’s unclear what they plan to do with it all.  These American émigré parents led extremely private yet unorthodox lives, perhaps involved in some spy stuff with multiple identities, and their unconventional lifestyle has left an imprint on their children, both raised in Paris, inquisitive and extremely well educated, where after going through some old photos, childhood drawings, and multiple fake documents, they both become aware of how little they actually knew about them.  There’s even a cameo appearance from the building landlord, Françoise Lebrun from Jean Eustache’s revered magnum opus The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), who reveals that the parents died owing three months’ rent, and that she personally prevented the insurance company from seizing their belongings, an act of kindness that suggests she may have known more about them than her own family.  In their memories there is warmth and tenderness, still learning little secrets about their parents while browsing through their things, discovering small unexplained mysteries.  Blending humor and melancholy, capturing the frustrating yet essential nature of family bonds, the film relies heavily on subtext, recurring visual cues, and uncomfortable silences to convey deep-seated emotions and complex histories, with Dusty Springfield singing a riff on the opening song, Dusty Springfield - Spooky (Just Dusty) - 04 02 1971 • TopPop YouTube (2:39), while a musical collaboration between Jarmusch and Annika Henderson creates a haunting soundtrack, Father Mother Sister Brother | 2025 | Jim Jarmusch & Anika | Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | Original Score | OST, with the Jackson Browne song These Days YouTube (3:35) playing out over the end credits, with the delicate voice of Anika sounding like a reincarnation of The Velvet Underground’s Nico.

2019 Top Ten List #3 Marriage Story

Director Noah Baumbach

MARRIAGE STORY            A                    

USA  (136 mi)  2019  d:  Noah Baumbach

Coming full circle in his career, while The Squid and the Whale (2005) is about a nasty divorce (without lawyers) between two literary parents largely seen through the children’s perspective, as the parental anger is internalized through the kids, returning to familiar territory more than a decade later, featuring the tug and pull on a single child during a contentious divorce, largely seen through the eyes of a show business couple splitting up on opposite coasts, where each film is a devastating emotional train wreck, though this may be Baumbach’s most mature work to date, largely losing the satiric comic humor, which may work as a defense mechanism, finally allowing the excruciating drama to breathe and unfold naturally.  In each film, the director speaks from experience, having endured a particularly contentious divorce between his literary parents as a child, and then experiencing it again firsthand during his 2013 divorce with actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.  Both films are emotionally impactful and career defining, with the earlier film favoring brief comic vignettes that stand out for their incisively expressed anguish and pain, while this later film is an hour longer, administering surges of corrosively exploding disagreements that send shock waves into the audience, as otherwise likeable people become combatants in a theatrically staged court process that feels absurdly designed to humiliate all parties concerned, leaving horrific carnage in its wake, which is supposedly in the best interests of the children.  Somehow, someway, people are supposed to recover from these traumatizing events and become reasonable people who are still capable of instilling love for their mutual children while working out the shared responsibilities of raising them from different homes.  Paying tribute to Ingmar Bergman’s epic SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973), though never taking sides, what’s uniquely different about this film is the freedom to explore both distinctly different personalities as they themselves are realizing the full extent of what is taking place internally, as no one is more surprised by the changing dynamics than they are, having been living comfortably under one roof, both successful in their own careers, happily combining their forces onstage, becoming part of the existing theater scene in New York.  Baumbach has always been known as an exquisitely gifted writer, as his performance-generated films accentuate a kind of free-flowing dialogue that is both smart and humorous at the same time, finding it easy to personally internalize his experiences cinematically, much like Woody Allen did early in his career when his films were immersed in the cultural spotlight of New York City, developing a kind of East coast chic, yet SQUID was the benchmark of his talents until this film, which is unlike anything else he’s ever done, more open, more accessible, yet emotionally abrasive, where it’s hard not to feel the open vein of heartbreak when you realize love often isn’t enough.           

Ostensibly the story of two charismatically appealing people, both providing the performance of their careers, Charlie (Adam Driver), an up and coming avant-garde theater director in New York who throws everything he makes back into his theater, while his wife, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), is the leading lady who stars in all his productions, where their lives revolve around each new play, consumed by the inherent possibilities of new expressions.  Together they have an adored 8-year old son Henry (Azhy Robertson), where the beauty of their marriage is that they’re all intrinsically attuned to one another, where one is an extension of the other, even down to the tiniest details, both openly generous, where there’s an unspoken language for married couples, who somehow know what the other is thinking or what they need and instantly provides it without so much of a thought, as it all happens so easily, becoming second nature to them.  The film opens with two meticulously detailed and amazingly coherent letters revealing everything they like about the other person, which defines them in adoringly lovable ways, exploring everything that’s uniquely different about them, while exposing their innate humanity, as this is the core foundation of their love.  It’s such a beautiful way to start a film, immediately pulling the audience into their inner wavelengths, finding something appealing about them both.  Without question they work well together, yet suddenly they’re in the offices of a marriage counselor, expected to read their prepared letters, but a fuming Nicole refuses, storming out in protest, finding it a complete waste of time.  Both decide they don’t want lawyers, thinking they can figure it out themselves.  As if in response, she decides to take a role in a television pilot that may or may not get picked up, moving to West Hollywood with Henry, living with her unhinged showbiz mother (Julie Hagerty) and socially awkward sister (Merritt Wever), exploring what her career might be like without Charlie.  While it’s viewed as a temporary, knee-jerk response, it literally opens the door to a brand new world for Nicole, something she always turned down before in favor of working with her husband, feeling she may have sacrificed her own career for his, but is now open to new opportunities.  Both she and Henry blossom in their new environment, while Charlie remains engrossed in his theater company, as his play is moving to Broadway, completely unaware of her emotional transformation, which is unleashed in a monologue of expurgated fury, where the intensity of her built-up anger surprises even her, unleashed in the offices of a hyper-focused divorce attorney, Nora (Laura Dern), friendly to a fault, but specializing in going for the jugular, offering her own blistering speech on the religiously entrenched societal devaluation of motherhood.  When Charlie comes to visit announcing that he’s won a “genius” MacArthur Fellowship grant, a prestigious award that comes with a sizable monetary stipend that can help fund his theater project, he’s completely blindsided by being served divorce papers (which was family rehearsed), while also urged to find a hotel, as he can’t stay with Nicole.  Welcome to life in LA.        

What follows is a descent into the monstrous hell of divorce attorneys, like a Kafkaesque house of pain that makes no sense, as Charlie typically avoids all lawyerly repercussions while attempting to stage his play, forced at the last minute to respond in court or lose custody rights, so he searches desperately for a lawyer, torn between tough guy Ray Liotta who basically extorts all future earnings (including his grant), charging the astronomical amount of $950/hour, and nice guy Alan Alda, a grandfatherly type who empathizes with his pain, offers hugs, charges considerably less, but is easily manipulated in the hearings, allowing Nora to ride roughshod over them.  Going through a series of humiliations and disappointments, having to fly back and forth between coasts, Charlie is up against it, as his world is simply collapsing all around him, living an agonizing life of deep turmoil, where every gesture is met with a resounding slam of the door.  Even Henry turns against him, as he’s enrolled in school, has a bunch of new friends, where he’s enjoying himself more in the sunshine, surrounded by new opportunities, while Dad is in desperate straits, trying to hold on, but losing every step of the way, advised to establish residence in Los Angeles if he wants a chance of joint custody, but his life there is a dreary emptiness, a sham of an existence, kept away from his work which is collapsing without him, yet it’s his only chance to hold onto his son.  Meanwhile, Nicole’s life is flourishing, coming out from under her husband’s shadow, where her talent is recognized, realizing her own hopes and dreams, as her pilot is picked up, and she’s even been offered the chance to direct, where she’s part of the Hollywood crowd now, hanging out at posh parties with all the beautiful people.  However the day of reckoning arises, their ultimate day in court, with Charlie backed into a corner, forced to go with Mr. Big Bucks, Ray Liotta as his lawyer, where the back and forth resembles a street fight, each undermining the other with savage attacks of character, where it’s pure histrionics, like a theater performance of who can inflict the most damage, both ultimately leveled by heinously exaggerated accusations.  It’s a pathetic display that leaves both feeling humbled and utterly ashamed afterwards, attempting some reconciliation in Charlie’s empty apartment, but it deteriorates into a blitzkrieg of frayed emotions, where all the innermost fears and perpetual anxieties come streaming out in a slugfest for the ages, leaving both devastated and emotionally exhausted afterwards, emptying themselves of all nagging resentments, perhaps free to finally let go.  Subjected to a near surreal visit by a court appointed observer that ends in an unmitigated disaster, Baumbach magnificently pivots into two Stephen Sondheim songs from Company wonderfully getting the elevated exposure they deserve, capturing the richness and emotion of the lyrics while transforming them into new contexts, ambitiously interweaving them into the refreshingly new state of mind of each character, cleverly altering the meaning in marvelously inventive sequences.  Nicole showcases her natural charisma singing You Could Drive a Person Crazy with her mother and sister in an upbeat Andrews Sisters-style rendition at a large party gathering with friends, now gloriously happy, in harmony with her surroundings and the picture of success, while Charlie, back in New York in a piano bar surrounded by his theater troupe breaks out into Being Alive, almost in jest at first, but then diving in full throttle, with the words just gushing out, literally pouring out his heart and soul, becoming a spontaneous stream-of-conscience revelation, shot in one take, revealing an exposed, vulnerable side, finally opening up again, reconnecting to his world, yet it’s done with such an instinctual theatrical flair, feeling so effortless and natural.  Watching them process what they value the most, authentic performances, reveals a resuscitation of what’s so essential to them both as artists, bookending that marvelously inventive reading of the letters at the opening, coming full turn, both finally allowed to breathe again.