Jim Jarmusch is an artist. There are always artistic elements to be found in his movies. Broken Flowers is no exception. Almost everything in it is there for a reason (incl. the nympho teen) - but it's not enough. The movie is about a Don Juan character with no balls. He has no impetus, apparently no interests (beyond some half-hearted womanizing), and, catastrophically, the plot of the movie remains unsolved. Obviously, Jarmusch wants to raise some issues, but leave them open for the audience to deal with. Fine - art does that, too. But it's not as constructive - or as good art - as it would have been to actually provide a resolution; some closure. The best art makes statements.
Yes, the movie has many good and funny bits. But everything that is mysterious simply remains so. That's not very satisfying at all. It ends up being a movie without a point. Well, it probably has some vague point, but it's certainly not penetrable to the mainstream audience.
(Edit, a few weeks later: I have emended my rating of this movie from 6 to 7 stars, because - rather surprisingly - my mother and my brother enlightened me about the ending. It is not open-ended or unresolved. The point is that Sherry, the woman who leaves Don in the beginning, wrote the letter in order to try to prove to him that he really does care, although he's forgotten to, and although he in fact has no son. This ending makes the movie enormously more wholesome and meaningful, because it makes it about remembering and rediscovering a long-lost happiness; the happiness of knowing who you are and in that knowledge being able to give and receive love. With this ending, the movie *does* make a statement! Still, I'm not rating it higher than a "7" because the statement is so vaguely presented - I mean, just look at the user comments here; hardly anyone, incl. myself at first, got the point. The symbolism was a little too convoluted. But it's probably a movie that, in time, will become increasingly recognized as a neat art movie.)
7 stars out of 10.
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