Father Mother Sister Brother is a new Jim Jarmusch film that’s very much more the Paterson Jarmusch than the Dead Man Jarmusch; retroactively introspective, a multi-narrative chronicle that tells the story of multiple families in different walks of life navigating emotionally distant parents and the situations that they find themselves in.
There are overlaps, of course. Always overlaps. In the first story, an estranged sibling pair Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik go to visit Tom Waits’ reclusive Father in the remote wilderness outside New York City. But Father is hiding something from them – posh cars, a sinister edge – his ramshackle house isn’t as ramshackle as it first appears. The meeting is tense and awkward; between the well-off sibling pair and Father – and the two leave after a short space of time; debating the metrics of toasting to tea or water; the definition of bob’s your uncle, and the increase in skaters that run across all three of the narratives.
The next chapter switches to Dublin – two estranged daughters visit their mother for their yearly catchup – Vicky Krieps’ pink-haired Lilith and the uptight, stagey Cate Blanchett’s Tim – both operating under the motherhood of Charlotte Rampling’s parental figure who is blessed for a catchup yearly but has nothing to say to her daughters, and doesn’t want to discuss the books she writes with them – as drawn to the covers as they are. To them, Robert is their uncle – a lot more posher a turn of phase; but it’s unclear, if like Tom Waits’ father, all is as it seems, Lilith has her friend/lover act as her uber driver to avoid her mother’s judgement, and things are stilted between Tim and Lilith as much as them both and their mother. The awkwardness of nothing to say couldn’t be more evident.
The third chapter – Skye and Billy; non identical twins, have just lost their parents, played by Indya Moore and Luke Sabbat, and the actors carry the shared grief of losing them on an unknown flight completely seriously. It’s harsh; devastating – yet they embrace their death as they did in life; with closer a bond than any of the pair above. To Father Mother Sister Brother, they are the heart of the story and the one that makes it the most rewarding – in Paris; making the most out of one last trip to their parents’ home.
Who or what are our parents and does our parents action define who we are? Do we know everything about them? Father Mother Sister Brother asks this with the meandering fatality of a Jim Jarmusch film; headed towards self-discovery. The calmness and simplicity of its narrative and the delight in the day-to-day forces you to slow down and admire its restraint; there’s no scenery-chewing, Oscar moment to be found – just a contemplative nature that Jarmusch revels in. Mystery Train, Night on Earth and Coffee and Cigarettes have all been anthologies that he has tackled in the past – and this new one is his quietist yet. Deeply personal, refreshingly honest – searingly unique.
Father Mother Sister Brother feels more as a whole than as an individualistic narrative; the silence of being unable to connect with family and the heartbreaking nature of you not being able to chose what family you are born into. For anyone with distant siblings I imagine this will hit like a train. As always, Tom Waits is superb and there are echoes of Ozu at every turn – spiritualistic guidance, never a family, just people born under the same roof.
