Broken Flowers written and directed by Jim Jarmusch Focus Features, 2005; 106 min.

In the opening scene of Jim Jarmusch's latest film, Broken Flowers, Don Johnston's girlfriend calls him an “over-the-hill Don Juan” and walks out of his life. In one line she has imprisoned his essence — a man with heroic qualities that have earned him nothing. Don's ensuing epic invites us to define our own lives and the way we live them — to crystallize our personal psychology in his misery, to at least identify what it is we're looking for lest we end up like Don: semi-conscious on the couch, watching the world go by on a TV screen.

As Sherry (Julie Delpy) carries her belongings out the door, Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a retired computer tycoon, stands in the foyer looking melancholy in his slept-in tracksuit, and, in a flat, emotionless tone, asks Sherry not to leave. He is unable to say or do anything more to make her stay.

Don is incapable of loving Sherry. Though his life has been full of love affairs, Don himself is empty of passion. As she is leaving, Sherry says, “I feel like your mistress and you're not even married.” This comment scratches at the lack of care and concern that Don has shown toward Sherry. She feels disconnected from Don, like an outsider in his life. One can imagine the dullest of dinner conversations, in which Don discloses only the trivial events of his day and nothing of his emotions, thoughts, or reflections. Just before Sherry goes, she asks Don what he wants, and the question is lost on him. He answers with another question: “What do you want?”

Before she goes, Sherry motions toward a pink envelope lying in a pile of recently delivered mail and asks if it's a love letter from one of Don's female admirers. Instead, it's a letter from an anonymous ex-girlfriend informing Don of the son he never knew he had, who is now 19 years old and on a road trip in search of his father. Don barely musters a reaction to the news, but his neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), an amateur sleuth, embraces the