‘You know, it’s funny… you come to someplace new, an’… and everything looks just the same...’
I’ve spent an entire cinematic lifetime trying to get into the films of indie darling Jim Jarmusch. I’ve sat through Paterson, The Dead Don’t Die, Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and I can honestly say I haven’t really enjoyed any of them. Worse than that, I don’t think I have understood any of them. When people complain of Joe Swanberg’s movies that ‘nothing happens’, I finally know how they feel. Once again, this movie started, there was a bunch of dull, lifeless scenes, and then the credits rolled. And once again, I didn’t really have a clue what the film was supposed to be about…
Willie (John Lurie) is a down-on-his-luck gambler who is supposedly shaken from his stupor by the arrival of his younger cousin Eva (Eszter Balint), except he isn’t because there is no discernible character development within this film that I could see.
Both Lurie and Balint have a certain charm, and both have gone on to bigger and better things in various fields, and Richard Edson brings a touch of roguish charm to Eddie, Willie’s long suffering friend and fellow card shark, but ultimately, Stranger Than Paradise feels more like CCTV footage than an actual movie. As with many of Jarmusch’s films, there is painfully little here in terms of plot. Instead, the whole thing meanders along at a snail’s pace before abruptly concluding in a blaze of mediocrity.
Someone somewhere loves Jim Jarmusch and his movies, and they are often critically adored, but me? I’m done with this guy.