Everyone loves Bill Murray. Whether it was his run of hit comedies in the '80s and early '90s, including Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and What About Bob?, or his late career revival in the 2000s onwards, he's one of the best-loved actors working in Hollywood today. His career revival perhaps owes more to American independent cinema than it does the large studios, with his long-standing collaboration with Wes Anderson standing out above the crowd. Broken Flowers is a notably subtler affair, with Murray playing an ageing Lothario type who discovers he may have a long lost son. Part road movie, part late life existential crisis, it's a predictably enigmatic film coming from American auteur Jim Jarmusch. Like Sophia Coppola's Lost In Translation, Broken Flowers rarely features a shot in which Murray isn't in it and he delivers a largely deadpan performance. Unfortunately, while his acting is every bit as good here, no Best Actor Academy Award nominations were forthcoming and the film failed to reach the wide audience it deserved.
