Father Mother Sister Brother review: Jim Jarmusch’s soulful film asks if we can really know our parents
Father Mother Sister Brother movie review
Cast: Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Sarah Greene, Indya Moore, Luka Sabbat, Françoise Lebrun
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Star rating: ★★★.5
Jim Jarmusch’s latest film is charming and might initially seem too simple for its own good, but it has a lovely wisdom that lingers. Right from the rather strange title, the film arrives with a typically wry sense of humour. It is a triptych, all revolving around the inevitability of family. We all come from parents, and we all have some family, and our own complicated relationships around it. Jarmusch’s sombre and delicate film explores three such family histories, offering to dissect the ways in which we communicate and choose to avoid those we are closest to.
The premise
The first of these stories is the funniest and most touching. Adam Driver and Mayim Biyalik play siblings, Jeff and Emily. They are driving to the isolated cabin to meet their father (a hilarious and uplifting performance from Tom Waits). They are concerned for him, but not enough to take him back with them. So they offer their pleasantries and engage in small talk until there is nothing else to discuss. Jarmusch builds the awkward silences so expertly that I had to hide a quick giggle.
Elsewhere, Charlotte Rampling plays the rather authoritative matricarch in a slick red dress. She is an author who doesn’t like her daughters touching her books. She is expecting a visit from the two of them: the eldest, Timothea (Cate Blanchett), and the youngest, Lillith (Vicky Krieps). Timothea is duty-bound and careful, while Lillith, with her hair dyed orange and the one sneaking in casual lies to hide her relationship, does not care two cents about this meeting. The three sit down to catch up, but really, it’s just as good as a telephonic call.
The last of these stories is markedly different. It involves no sardonic humour, as French-American twins Billy (Luka Sabbat) and Skye (Indya Moore) finally take the time to meet at their deceased parents’ Parisian apartment. It provides the twins some time to reflect and bond over their lives and memories of growing up. It is the longest of the lot and closes the film on a melancholic note, gently reaffirming the underlying context of this intelligently made feature.
A gentle, wistful film
The cast is universally good, with Kreips and Driver being standouts. Jarmusch’s ear for dialogue is as clever as ever, with one scene involving an axe used by the father generating the loudest laughs in the packed screening at the International Film Festival of Kerala. Jarmusch connects the dots in little moments, not in interlinking family members. A bunch of young skateboarders also recur in each of these threads, as a charming moment of silence ensues, while our characters reflect on how the world has moved on. This is a film where the said word is never the one that is meant. The unsaid word fills the room, frame by frame, to unpack a common thread of miscommunication. What is said is said; it can never be taken back.
What is this film about? Why, it is about family. The calm and the chaos that it brings simultaneously. The way our parents know us so closely and yet do not know us at all. In the same way, perhaps we do not know them as people. It is about showing up. It is also a film about the passage of time. We might have progressed so much, and yet, we continue to believe in the illusion of a deeply capitalistic society.
Note how the third story is marked by the absence of the parents, and it is also the only time the film lets go of that awkward energy and focuses on effective communication. Unlike the previous two acts, Jarmusch, who is working here with DoPs Frederick Elmes and Yorick Le Saux, grants the third one space. In it, the frame shifts, expands, and allows the twins to stretch their arms, walk about, and fall flat. Laugh and say again and again, ‘I love you so much.’ There is not an iota of awkwardness to it, which allows the viewer to listen and pay attention; Jarmusch is able to bring that shift in tone with quicksilver wit and dramatic irony. It is a small film that hides a key to a giant secret. Jarmusch insists that you come close, and sometimes, just call your parents.
