Jim Jarmusch invites the audience into three family gatherings of adult children in his gentle triptych “Father Mother Sister Brother.”
Don’t worry, you won’t be upset that you’re not a part of any of them, not even the one where Tom Waits plays Adam Driver’s father. To be honest, all the groups are very good on paper. In the first chapter, siblings Jeff and Emily drive together to meet their father for the first time. In another, a mother is waiting for her elder daughters Tim and Lilith’s annual tea. And in the third, Skye and Billy’s parents are left with only things.
But these are weird and stressful hangouts, no one is literally connected to each other, and they’re all in different parts of the world. Yet there are small threads in there – for example, Rolex watches, filled with water, red clothes, and the phrase “Bob is your uncle”. And then the more cosmically nagging realization that familiarity and closeness aren’t always in the cards when it comes to family. Everyone in “Father Mother Sister Brother” would like to be anywhere else rather than where they are. Same same, but different, you know?
The film opens with “Father” and siblings Jeff and Emily reluctantly checking on his health. They are both very strict and formal in both appearance and conduct. Waits, like his father, is the complete opposite – one might think he doesn’t even have a blazer or a comb-over. His house is as messy as his zip-up hoodie sweatshirt and he’s a little rambling himself, talking about all the medications he’s not taking. The gap between them and their children is huge and widening. Other than their mother’s death, there doesn’t seem to have been any inciting event that could explain any level of separation – they’re just very different. And the father may not be as helpless and destitute as he is presenting to his children. After they leave, he cleans the place up and calls a friend over to go out to a nice dinner.
Blame it on the age of the people who get to make movies, but parents are often afterthoughts, supporting characters in children’s stories. Jarmusch cleverly subverts this in the “Father” segment, which completely ramps up expectations for his next entry, “Mother,” in which Rampling is on the phone, presumably with a therapist, mentally preparing for her daughters’ arrival. They all live around Dublin, but rarely see each other, making this tea a dreaded ritual. Blanchett’s Tim, one of the first-borns, is under a lot of stress due to being late. Meanwhile, Cripps Lilith is all about showing off – bragging about material things and accomplishments for which she doesn’t have receipts and she knows that on some level no one believes her. These women are also not joining.
In the final section, the parents are gone. They have died and left only mementos in a Paris apartment whose rent is overpaid by three months. It is both a puzzle and a mess that their children now have to clean up and understand. “Father Mother Sister Brother” is in some ways deeply cynical about familial bonds and the possibility of ever really knowing one’s parents. It’s devoid of warm, fuzzy feelings and clichéd revelations, just the crushing idea that no matter what blood-relationships may exist, we are all fundamentally strangers.
Ultimately, it’s an interesting experiment of a film, and perhaps even more interesting is that it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year over films like “No Other Choice,” “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” “The Testament of Ann Lee” and “Bugonia.” And yet there’s some solace in the fact that Jarmusch is still doing his thing, exactly the way he wants to, and there are so many great artists lining up to be a part of it. She is a unique voice in a landscape that is always in danger of being flattened. Just don’t go into the movie expecting a warm-hearted holiday treat.
Mubi’s film “Father Mother Sister Brother”, which released in select theaters on Wednesday, has been given an R rating for language by the Motion Picture Association. Running time: 110 minutes. Three out of four stars.
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