Director: Jim Jarmusch
Stars: Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, Indya Moore
Out of abstract light patterns and undulations, Jim Jarmusch’s latest emerges; a triptych of familial relations that feels like the most self-consciously reflective work that the director has ever made, as though announcing an official ‘late period’, setting himself at the table of American cinema’s elder statesmen. It’s a film about memory and nostalgia. Of looking back with bittersweet fondness and regret. A trans-Atlantic work, it most resembles his 1991 joint Night on Earth, collaging disparate tales that share themes, suggestive of universality. He mines the comedy of banality, but also risks, on occasion, simply conjuring banality itself. It’s a gamble that pays off, mostly.
The first part of this anthology – “Father” – takes us down the winding snowy roads of rural New Jersey, as siblings Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) check in on their eccentric and crotchety ol’ dad (Tom Waits). Jarmusch sets a tone of wry, minor key realism, redolent of Kelly Reichardt’s masterpiece Certain Women, and uses the segment to get the ball rolling on a number of recurring motifs and ideas. Jeff has been lending his pa money for emergency renovations, but on arrival it seems clear that the man has been fritting the money away on chic furniture. Emily is inclined to more accusatory sentiments than Jeff, who would rather keep the peace and ignore the issue. Jarmusch observes the awkwardness of estrangement and familial obligation, but he roots it in human connection.
The middle act – “Mother” – relocates to Dublin for a similar reunion, this time for matriarch and best-selling author Catherine Russell (Charlotte Rampling) and her two daughters Lilith (Vicky Krieps) and Timothea (Cate Blanchett). Jarmusch ruefully mocks his own multinational casting choices (“You do sort of sound kind of Belgian”) and settles down for a deliberately stilted comedy of manners, itemising the space in conversation. The time and distance between these three women. Again there’s a lie that hangs heavy, this time concerning Lilith’s sexuality and through this is conjured generational dissonance and the fear of judgment and rejection from those you’re supposed to depend on for love. Echoes from chapter one emerge. Idle talk of star signs, apologies and excuses, and the rituals of drinking together. Indeed, this is evidently a yearly ‘event’ meeting and Catherine doesn’t skimp on the ceremony of her ostentatious spread. But the mood is obligatory and uncomfortable.
Finally – “Sister Brother” – takes us to Paris, and an absence of parents. Twins Billy (Luke Sabbat) and Skye (Indya Moore) are reunited after not long apart to bid a last farewell to their parents’ apartment, having lost the both of them to a freak plane crash in the Azures. As with the prior chapters there’s a winding preamble of commuting, drinking together (coffee for these Black characters, as opposed to tea for the whites), and a defacto air of nostalgia thanks to the situation.
But “Sister Brother” knits the whole together through contrast. Where the previous chapters were typified by strained and stifled interactions, here things are loose, close and affectionate. Billy and Skye relish in their near-psychic bond (“Twin factor!”), when they walk she holds on to him, when they reminisce it is warm where the prior chapters were cold, and the characters display an appreciation for one another that feels genuine. Whether this represents a racial commentary from Jarmusch is up for debate, but it’s a balm after over an hour of muted subterfuge. This contrast also shines a light backward on the first two chapters, revealing their characters’ complacency. It raises Father Mother Brother Sister up just when it risked sinking into the doldrums.
It feels lazy to make observations of things Lynchian, but this is The Lost Highway Hotel, after all, and there are undeniable touches here. The opening ride between Jeff and Emily feels decidedly Straight Story-esque, though Jeff’s (leased) Range Rover is a smoother ride than a lawnmower. Meanwhile, Billy and Skye’s stop-off for coffee at the other end of the picture recalls the folksy surrealist circa Twin Peaks. The small comforts of giving one’s self a present. Father Mother Sister Brother has some of the gentler mannerisms of Twin Peaks: The Return in it’s exploration of side characters, although here they’re the main event. And, as intimated, it too feels like a consciously constructed ‘late piece’, aware of but not distracted by its position within a larger body of work.
In all three stories, time slows down for passing skater kids, and in these unifying moments one is tempted to imprint Jarmusch’s own nostalgia for youth. He’s still boyish at heart. Still unapologetically hipster-ish. Tom Waits’ father figure waits for his kids to leave before removing the set-dressing of his life in a humorous punchline to Jarmusch’s little one-act play. His doddering messiness is a front. A facade. Really he’s an old cool cat, still kicking it. He’s Jarmusch’s on-screen avatar, perhaps. Father Mother Sister Brother is an uneven piece but, after the filmmaker’s longest sabbatical following career-wobble The Dead Don’t Die, it feels like he’s returned more himself than ever. Though elements of this one suggest another urge, growing old gracefully may suit him yet.
The Lost Highway Hotel 