by Mark Demetrius
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Charlotte Rampling, Mayim Bialik, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps
Intro:
… a movie with a circular beauty all its own, and a quorum of wisdom and wit.
Jim Jarmusch — director and writer — is nothing if not a distinctive filmmaker. But although his vision is singular, it’s manifested itself in all manner of different ways. In this case, the result — and its slow pace in particular — may deeply divide audiences.
Father Mother Sister Brother is an anthology or portmanteau film: there are three separate stories, all linked by the theme of young adult siblings trying — maybe even struggling — to connect with or understand their parents. They also share certain recurring motifs: to be specific, references to water, Rolex watches and the expression “Bob’s your uncle”, and slow-motion footage of people skating.
It sounds odd, but the contrivance works well. The first story (“Father”) features that old Jarmusch hand Tom Waits as a grizzled, enigmatic — and evidently cash-strapped — old man living alone in remote (and currently snowbound) New Jersey. His son and daughter are apprehensive as they drive towards his shack, and the apprehensions prove justified when we see what a very peculiar and nervous host he is. The dialogue is superbly naturalistic, but here and throughout the movie, the periods of silence also serve to heighten a sense of awkward unease.
The setting in “Mother’’ is Dublin, where a successful novelist (Charlotte Rampling) is preparing for a visit — a strictly annual tradition — by her daughters. They couldn’t be more different, the elder woman (an almost unrecognisable Cate Blanchett) being relatively straight and prim, while her sister is both more rebellious and secretive. The clash of sensibilities is amusing, but you titter nervously rather than laughing out loud.
And then there’s “Sister Brother’’, arguably a tad soporific and the closest thing to a weak link in the chain, though it has its moments. The difference here is that the parents have recently died — they crashed a plane — and their twin son and daughter go to their empty Parisian apartment. They’re both quite worldly and wry, but as in the other tales, one is markedly more together and apparently more responsible.
This is a movie with a circular beauty all its own, and a quorum of wisdom and wit.
Recommended.
