Filmed over two decades, the film opens with its oldest segment, a 1986 meeting between the rabbit-and-hare comic sensibilities of Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni. They meet, seem to want to like each other, never quite find common ground, and go their separate ways. A sketchy-yet-resonant piece of off-the-cuff comedy shot in Jarmusch's earliest, driest style, it's emblematic of what's to come.
By definition, grab-bag films are uneven, and some of Coffee And Cigarettes' segments—a meeting of Spike Lee's less-charismatic siblings, an aloof beauty's lonely afternoon—capture Jarmusch at his most oblique and least rewarding. As the film goes along, however, themes and even lines of dialogue resurface, and Jarmusch's comic sensibilities grow more assured.
Two particularly fine segments explore the way fame distorts human relationships. In one, 24 Hour Party People's Steve Coogan attempts to determine what advantage, if any, he can wring from learning that he's related to Alfred Molina. In another, Cate Blanchett fends off the passive-aggressive, though not exactly unwarranted, attacks of a rough-edged cousin (also played, wickedly, by Cate Blanchett). Elsewhere, encounters between The White Stripes and a Tesla coil, and between RZA, GZA, and a "disguised" Bill Murray are as satisfying as they sound.
Jarmusch has cautioned against reading too much continuity into a film whose scenes may have nothing more in common than shared moments over coffee cups, but he closes Coffee And Cigarettes with a sad, graceful moment that sums it all up. As two aging working stiffs share a coffee break, one imagines himself into a better time and place, and the soundtrack swells to accommodate the fantasy. Sometimes, bad habits and awkward company are the best anyone gets, but they're better than nothing.
