Father Mother Sister Brother
Parents are enigmas to their children in this wry, mellow comedy from Jim Jarmusch
"It never really seemed like they had that much shit, but they really squirrelled a lot of stuff away." It’s an innocuous line that arrives in an innocuous moment, siblings Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) staring at a storage locker filled with stuff left behind by their departed parents. But in a sly, understated way that’s typical of the movie, this line also explains what Father Mother Sister Brother is really about – the ways in which parents and children remain a perpetual mystery to one another.
Jim Jarmusch’s triptych comedy follows three separate families. Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) visit their long-suffering father (Tom Waits) while Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) are summoned to high tea with their formidable mother (Charlotte Rampling). Skye and Billy seem genuinely at ease together, but both the other groups are as awkward as strangers meeting for the first time. More awkward, in fact, because they know it shouldn’t be this difficult. And all three meetings are characterised by absence – missing people, awkward silences and things left unsaid.
There’s a great deal of deception going on. Jarmusch plays this as a grand joke in Jeff and Emily’s segment, making brilliant use of Waits’s unique presence to deliver its final punchline. Lilith spends most of her story making up fanciful tales about her life that are smilingly accepted by everyone and believed by no one in a way that’s both funny and sad – which neatly describes Jarmusch's bittersweet movie.
Released 10 Apr by MUBI; certificate 12A