Jim Jarmusch invites viewers to three family gatherings of adult children in his delicate trippy. “Father Mother Sister Brother.”
Don't worry, you won't be offended that you're not a part of any of them, even the one where Tom Waits plays Adam Driver's father. Honestly, on paper all of these bands are pretty cool. In the first chapter, siblings Jeff (Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) travel to visit their father (Waits) for the first time in a long time. In the second, the mother (Charlotte Rampling) is waiting for Tim's grown daughters ( Cate Blanchett ) and Lilith ( Vicky Krieps ) for the annual tea. And in the third, all that remains of parents Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) are things.
But these are awkward and tense get-togethers, none of which are literally related to each other, and all in different parts of the world. However, there are little threads throughout – for example, Rolex watches, toast with water, red clothes and the idiom “Bob is your uncle”. And then there's the more cosmically haunting realization that familiarity and intimacy aren't always possible when it comes to family. In “Father-Mother-Sister-Brother” everyone would prefer to be anywhere but where he is. Same thing, but different, you know?
The film opens with “The Father” where siblings Jeff and Emily reluctantly perform a health check of sorts. They are both very buttoned-up and formal, both in appearance (blazers, sweaters, combed hair) and demeanor. Waits, like their father, is the complete opposite – you'd think he didn't even own a jacket or a comb for that matter. His house is as rumpled as his zip-up hoodie, and he's a little clumsy after rattling off all the medications he's (no longer) taking. The gap between him and his children is huge and continues to grow. Aside from their mother's death, there doesn't even seem to be any inciting incident that could explain any level of estrangement – they're just very, very different. And the father may not be as helpless and poor as he imagines his children to be. After they leave, he cleans up the mess and invites a friend to go out for a nice dinner.
The age of the people making the films is to blame, but parents are often minor characters in children's stories. Jarmusch cleverly inverts this in the episode “The Father,” which perfectly matches the expectations of his next entry, “The Mother,” in which Rampling talks on the phone, presumably to a therapist, mentally preparing for the arrival of her daughters. They all live near Dublin, but rarely see each other, which makes tea drinking a kind of creepy ritual. Tim Blanchett, a typical first-born son, is very worried about being late. Lilith Kripsa, meanwhile, engages in posturing—bragging about material things and achievements for which she has no receipts and which she knows that on some level no one believes anyway. These women don't communicate either.
In the last segment, the parents left. They died and left behind only mementos in a Paris apartment where the rent was three months overdue. It is both a mystery and a mess that their children now have to figure out and sort out. Father-Mother-Sister-Brother is in some ways deeply cynical about family ties and the possibility of ever truly knowing one's parents. There are no warm fuzzy feelings or trite revelations, just the crushing idea that no matter what bloodlines may exist, we are all fundamentally alien.
Ultimately, this is an interesting experimental film, and perhaps even more interesting than that. won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year among the likes “There is no other choice”“The Voice of Hind Rajab”. “The Testament of Ann Lee” and “Bugonia”. And yet there's something comforting in the fact that Jarmusch is still doing his job exactly the way he wants to, and that so many great actors are lining up to be a part of it. He is the only voice in a landscape that is always in danger of being destroyed. Just don't expect warm holiday hugs from the film.
“Father, Mother, Sister, Brother,” a Mubi film released Wednesday in select theaters, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language. Duration: 110 minutes. Three stars out of four.
