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Bill Murray gives the past some room to grow on him in 'Broken Flowers'

By TERRY MORRIS
Dayton Daily News

A lifelong lothario and bachelor named Don Johnston ends up where he started in Broken Flowers, a fact the understated and economical director Jim Jarmusch summarizes perfectly with a closing 360-degree view of a nicked and dented Bill Murray, who plays him.

But the aging Don Juan has been transformed by this point in a quest that has intensified from yawning reluctance to full-sprint passion.

Focus Features 'Broken Flowers' B+ Director: Jim Jarmusch Starring: Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange Run time: 105 minutes Release date: August 5, 2005 Rating: R for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Broken Flowers"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Even more outwardly contained than he was in Lost in Translation, an earlier stop on this evolutionary trail, Murray doesn't crack one obvious joke in a darkly funny, poignant, hopeful film that dangles numerous temptations for his madcap wit.

He portrays a man who has arrived somewhat, but not too late, at the need to attach meaning to his life.

Invented or not, the trigger is an unsigned letter from an anonymous former lover who suggests he may have a 19-year-old son who's trying to find him. The catalyst is a neighbor (Jeffrey Wright as Winston) who congratulates him on being a dad, insisting that Johnston try to solve the mystery and even providing an itinerary.

He traces the women Don lists as the possible mother, maps routes to their homes, books the flights, rental cars and lodging. Freshly dumped by his latest much younger lover, Sherry (Julie Delpy), off Don goes to "check in" with his past.

Life promises no direct answers and Jarmusch doesn't deliver them. What he does provide, for those with the patience to collect and consider them, are connections between items, names and occurrences that may be significant or may just be nips of rueful irony.

The old flames include Sharon Stone as Laura, whose nubile daughter Lolita lives up to her name; Frances Conroy as Dora, a strikingly older version of Delpy as Sherry; Jessica Lange as Carmen, an animal communicator with a more than loyal female assistant, and Tilda Swinton as Penny, whose watchdog greets Don with a communication he might have given more heed.

It's safe to rule out at least two of them, but not so Don can either satisfy Winston's detective-novel curiosity or his own sudden need to know whether any of the young men who cross his path might be more than that to him. He may go back to at least occasionally sitting in the solitary gloom of his living room, but he'll never be the same.