Jarmusch has never been a straight forward director. From the quiet methodical humming of Only Lovers Left Alive, to the peaceful meanderings of Paterson it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is about his movies that resonate so well with people. He’s had a long career and has never had much trouble getting well known actors to appear in his works. His latest project Father Mother Sister Brother is no exception.

The film is a collection of seemingly unconnected vignettes. Although they each have a few nods to the other to highlight the similarities between families, similarities that transcend gender, border, age, and upbringing. Small nonsensical cues that hearken back to the scenes that will follow, and the scenes that have been followed.

The opening sequence centers around a pair of siblings going out to check in on their widowed father (Tom Waits) in rural New York state. Adam Drive playing the brother, with Mayim Bialik portryaing the sister. The sequence is familiar to anyone who has paid a visit to an aging family member, a grandfather, a grandmother. Checking in on them to ensure they’re eating ok, that their house doesn’t have any oddjobs that need doing. Waits portrays the patriarch of the family with the gravelly surliness one might expect from the singer turned occasional actor. There is humor in the scene, not quite jokes, but anyone familiar with Jarmusch’s bone dry witticism will feel right at home. As the two siblings leave they realize how little they actually know about their father, and how much more he may be keeping from them.

The next sequence has two sisters popping in on their single mother (Charlotte Rampling) on the outskirts of Dublin. Unlike the last pair, these two look remarkably different from one another. One is well to do, a very proper lady (Cate Blanchett) while the other is in a queer relationship that he mother doesn’t know about and rocks pink hair and loud opinions (Vicky Krieps). Casting Krieps to be as different as possible from Blanchett must have been a purposeful decision because I cannot understand forcing her to try (and fail) to do an english accent unless that was by design. This scene is more about the secrets that the sisters are keeping from each other, as well as the secrets they keep from their mother. The talk about how their mother never lets them read any of her books, and the three of them sit down to a terse afternoon tea. It is, perhaps the saddest, and the most well to do of the sequences.

Finally the last sequence is of twin siblings clearing their deceased parents apartment out in Paris. Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat portray wild youths of wild parents. They sift through their parents things, finding IDs and vehicle registration for places that they never knew their parents had lived. Even amidst a family full of love and openess they find out things about the people they have spent the entirety of their lives with. The two are close, and have just been brought together for the first time in a while to tackle this unsavory task. In their uncertainty and discovery they seem to grow closer.

The dialogue and performances throughout these scenes drive home the message of mystery that the movie has at its center. Truly knowing somebody is intensely difficult work. Putting faith, even in family members, that they will know who you truly are is nearly impossible. But even amidst all the challenges that lie in that task, there are known similarities that overpower those challenges, and those similarities can be found outside of bloodline as well as within them. It’s a wonderful combination of writing and acting, even if the vignette design feels a little like a crutch for as talented of a film maker as Jarmusch.

4/5