PhilPaine.com

My friend Skye Sepp brought this film to my atten­tion. I’ve been burnt a few times by movies star­ring Bill Mur­ray. But he is per­fect in this one. The film is a char­ac­ter com­e­dy. It isn’t a “roman­tic com­e­dy”, since there is no suc­cess­ful roman­tic res­o­lu­tion. It has a very con­tem­po­rary feel­ing. The char­ac­ters and set­ting are def­i­nite­ly now — that is, the Unit­ed States as it real­ly is in 2005, and not some behind-the-times fac­sim­i­le gen­er­at­ed by writ­ers and film-mak­ers who have lost touch with the cul­ture. Jim Jar­musch wrote and direct­ed the film, and it’s obvi­ous that he keeps his eyes and ears open, and knows his own soci­ety. Any Amer­i­can who knows how to use Ethiopi­an pop music in a film, in a way that shows a lit­tle respect, plain­ly has his fin­ger on the pulse.