#134 Broken Flowers

Jim Jarmusch's latest underscores just how uncompromised the director's work has been and probably will remain. There's a mystery at the core of Broken Flowers, but Jarmusch doesn't give us the satisfaction of naming the killer in the drawing room on the last page. No, Jarmusch's film is deliberatlely vague with the whys and wherefores of the whodunnit -- in this case, who caught main character Don Johnston's baby batter back in the good old days, then taunted him 20 years later with an anonymous note warning that the son he fathered is on his trail.

The film retains many of Jarmusch's familiar touches. Scenes, often episodic feeling, fade like unfinished sentances abandoned by their speaker. Music plays an important role again. The languid grooves of Ethiopian composer Mulatu Astatke punctuate the film on a mixed CD that Murray's character totes from rental car to rental car as he combs the country for the lover that might have mothered his child.

Bill Murray delivers another world-weary performance. He did, after all, sign on to read more voice over for the Garfield sequel. Your shoulder would develop a slouch too.

The half-full theater I screened the movie in seemed full of shaking heads when the lights came up. I wonder how long it's going to take the American public to figure out that Mr. Murray's name on the marquee is no longer a guarantee that you'll be rolling in the aisles.