Broken Flowers (2005)

An anonymous letter from the past can send a man knocking on doors he thought he'd closed forever. Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" gives Bill Murray another deceptively simple, seemingly effortless and deeply revealing role. He plays Don Johnston, an aging, emotionally detached former ladies' man whose latest girlfriend (Julie Delpy) has just walked out on him. That same day, he receives an anonymous pink letter informing him that he has a 19-year-old son who may be looking for him. Don only agrees to investigate at the urging of his neighbor Winston (the indispensable Jeffrey Wright), an amateur sleuth who not only tracks down the current addresses of the possible mothers but plans Don's entire trip, right down to the rental cars. Almost against his will, Don finds himself on the doorsteps of four very different women he once loved, played by Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton. Part road movie, part detective story and part existential meditation, it's even more minimalist than most of Jarmusch's films, like "Stranger Than Paradise," "Mystery Train" and "Dead Man," so anyone looking for a tidy resolution should look elsewhere. But for viewers willing to let a film be as much a poem as a story, observing behavior without explaining it, it offers a wealth of mysteries, quiet gestures and Murray's soulful, expressive eyes. It's wonderfully eloquent about everything left unsaid, and it won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.