In a recent conversation with David Cronenberg for Interview magazine, Jim Jarmusch bemoaned “the horror of trying to raise money for our work.” Some of cinema’s most interesting and innovative auteurs are struggling to put films together these days, but luckily Jarmusch was able to make it work for his latest project, Father Mother Sister Brother. An anthology film “about the relationships between adult children and their parents,” the movie—which opens in U.S. theaters December 24—stars some Jarmusch repertory players including Adam Driver, Tom Waits, and Cate Blanchett.
“Told in the present day in the form of a triptych, ‘Father’ follows siblings Jeff and Emily (Driver and Mayim Bialik) who check up on their hermetic dad (Waits) in rural New Jersey; ‘Mother’ centers on sisters Lilith and Timothea (Vicky Krieps and Blanchett) as they reunite with their guarded novelist mother (Charlotte Rampling) in Dublin; while ‘Sister Brother’ follows twins Skye and Billy (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) while returning to their Paris apartment to address a family tragedy,” reads the Father Mother Sister Brother synopsis (via Variety). The trailer depicts a series of strange tea parties that bring old family dynamics to the fore. “I’m very happy to see them on the one hand, but… I just have to keep them from stirring things up,” as Rampling puts it.
“What I really, really love about [Jarmusch] is that he is still just making a movie. He’s not trying to make the next Jim Jarmusch. He’s not trying to go to Cannes,” Krieps said earlier this summer at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival of working with the indie filmmaker. “He’s really trying to figure out how to make the movie on set, like a student would make a movie. And that is very, very beautiful. That’s very loving, so it was a very loving set, very careful set. Working with Cate Blanchett and Charlotte Rampling was a gift, and we just had so much fun. We were laughing.”
Though Jarmusch may not be making movies for Cannes, Father Mother Sister Brother will nevertheless have a festival run. The film is set to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this weekend, and will later enjoy a North American premiere as the centerpiece of the 2025 New York Film Festival. “I am so very proud of the long history of my work being presented at the NYFF, and am now super honored that my newest film Father Mother Sister Brother has been selected for this year’s Centerpiece,” Jarmusch said in July (via Variety). “The NYFF, the chosen church of my religion, has provided many of my greatest inspirations and revelations in its continuing celebration of the deep and diverse beauty of cinema.”
