When Jim Jarmusch has developed something like an old-age work, then it shows that the now 72-year-old independent icon (“Down by Law”, “Dead Man”) has increasingly stripped more ambitions and the unconditional urge for coolness. He also adapted his rotary hythm to the decelerated mode of his films: It has been six years ago that the director in “The Dead Don't” favored actors such as Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and “Paterson” (2016), which has become apparently indispensable, expressed a zombie invasion-not least because of his laconian Gangart contracting proximity to the genre parody and the satirical zeitgeist comment with mixed result.
With “Father Mother Sister Brother”, Jarmuss is now followed by an even simpler concept-and it almost seems as if the author filmmaker in the meantime has got inspiration from another director: the Hong-Sang soo that was still overlooked in this country (“Right Now, Wrong Then”), which can only be so incredibly productive because he hardly needs more for his films Stem ensemble, table and chairs as well as a supply of rice wine. The masterful observation of social awkardness, but above all the episodic structure of “Father Mother Sister Brother” determined by repetitions inevitably remind you of the unmistakable dialogue cinema of the South Korean.
The sisters Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) don't have much to say – just as little as their mother (Charlotte Rampling).
In three chapters-“father”, “mother” and “sister brother”-Jarmusch designs chamber game-like variations of inner-family relationships and (non-) dynamics. The first segment focuses on Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik), who for the first time after two years visiting their abbreviated, alienated father (Tom Waits). The fundamentally different sisters Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) also see their mother (Charlotte Rampling) only once a year, although they all live in Dublin. And then there are the siblings Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luke Sabbat), who have just lost their parents and are now tracing together in the abandoned Paris family apartment of their past.
While Jeff and Emily are driving over godly, snow -covered country roads, Dusty Springfield's “Spooky” in the soundtrack is right on the groove, despite numerous interpersonal breaking points, from which “Father Mother Sister Brother” will no longer be excreted. Especially for Emily, the visit seems to be an unwelcome mandatory event, while Jeff regularly regularly supports her father, which has apparently not scratching the middle -class nature, that he has earned his money at all – over and when. Arrived in his unmistaked living room, the conversation gets to a standstill before it really started-even if the rudely awkward compliments greeted her children with a very awkwardly awkward compliments.
You can't choose the family
After about five minutes, the topics will finally go out. The bookshelf (Wilhelm Reich, NOAM Chomsky), the Jeff brought by Jeff, is quickly landed by Jeff, including a pasta sauce with cheese with cheese or the (supposed) fake-rolex on the father's wrist. It is initiated with water to the deceased mother (“Can you really get water with water?” – “Your mother loved water”), and Jeff fails to use a tube in need of repair as an excuse for a short -term escape attempt. Even this first section contains some of the funniest moments in Jarmusch's overall work, the dry change of words provide just as reliably as the numerous moments of unpleasant silence, the toolbox of which the toolbox is missing equally.
Can talk to each other needs practice, to be silent with each other requires trust. But what if there is a lack of both? “You can't choose the family,” says Jeff in the car and thus hits a core of the film – the family band is long not a guarantee of closeness or for knowing each other. In the first two episodes, it is simply important to find a handling of the given. The visits of Timothea and Lilith in their mother, played by Charlotte Rampling with a characteristically controlled strict, has a variety of communicative pitfalls, which not least results from the inability to meet each other openly and honestly. Even before her arrival, Lilith demolished her friend to the Uber driver to pretend her mother that she has her life under control.
Singer Tom Waits has been part of Jim Jarmusch since the 1980s.
Jarmusch reveals more about the relationship of his characters with the meticulous coffee table, which is always filmed in the top view, than many other films succeed with verbal means. If you want to accuse “Father Mother Sister Brother” at this time, the “Ghost Dog” maker counters with a scene that is only possible in the cinema, in which an awkwardly placed and much too large bouquet of flowers pushes in front of the faces of the figures. Here, in addition to the coffee pot and all kinds of sweet pastries, one or the other harsh tip is served over the table top, but malicious observations are otherwise entirely off. “Father Mother Sister Brother” looks at the clumsy to helpless interactions with a lot of sympathy, which gives you something touching.
With the third episode, the film changes its tone again, after all, Skye and her twin brother Billy are actually extremely close – what should there be. Even their movements are sometimes simultaneously simultaneously. When the siblings visit their already cleared childhood apartment in Paris after their parents' accident, browse and exchange memories in old photos, take over melancholy and tenderness, and in the chemistry between Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat, the comforting knowledge is reflected that you may not be able to choose family, but you sometimes get the right one.
Repetition as a narrative principle
The universality of family experience emphasizes “Father Mother Sister Brother”-and the circle to Hong Sang-Soo closes-repeating spellens, proverbs and events in every episode. Someone always uses the word creation “Nowheresville”, also the British phrase “Bob's your uncle” (which means something like “and finished”) plays a major role. A group of skaters appears every time, and water remains a constant conversation filler. The fact that the first episode ends with a punch line does not impose this as a rule in the following course, speaks for an otherwise casual relationship with its material. Nothing about it is spectacular-the director himself even speaks of an “anti-action film”. Some things are banal, some clever, although in truth it does not rule out. In any case, Jarmusch after “The Dead Don't Die” is entirely with himself.
Conclusion: In his latest film, the living independent cinema legend Jim Jarmusch is devoted to family relationships-and not only reminds the South Korean dialogue film champion Hong Sang-Sooo. This is probably why “Father Mother Sister Brother” is one of the funniest films of his career.
We saw “Father Mother Sister Brother” at the Venice Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated his world premiere as part of the official competition.