by SARAH ROWLAND

Jim Jarmusch has made a career out of making cool movies. He gets cool people (Tom Waits, Joe Strummer, Iggy Pop), puts them in cool settings (the alligator-infested swamps of New Orleans, the Elvis-haunted streets of Memphis, the smoke filled cafés of America) and, killing two birds with one stone, often scores cool soundtracks from his actors as well. While Bill Murray may not make any musical contributions to Jarmusch's latest, Broken Flowers, the 54-year-old actor more than makes up for it with his recently reinstated cool-clout.

The resilient SNL vet is at his deadpan best as Don Johnston, an aging Don Juan whose latest girlfriend (Julie Delpy) has just left him. We get the feeling that seeing a woman walk out the door with her suitcases packed is a biannual event for Don, yet it sets the affluent IT investor into a depressive tailspin. In the midst of this pity party he receives an anonymous letter informing him that he has a 19-year-old son who has just left on a journey in search of his estranged biological father. At the insistence of his lovable next-door neighbour Winston (Jeffrey Wright), who supplies the ESL comedy that Jarmusch seems so fond of (see Roberto Benigni in Down by Law and his wife Nicoletta Braschi in Mystery Train), Don brainstorms for potential suspects.

But since he was at the peak of his womanizing back then, he can only narrow down the list of possibilities to four women (Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy, Tilda Swinton). So Don reluctantly packs up his things and criss-crosses the country looking for the mother of his child. His only clue is the pink stationery that the letter was typed on. And according to Winston's online private eye training, all Don has to do is find the ex who's crazy about the colour pink and he'll crack the case.

Here we see each actress make the most of her limited screen time. Not since Casino have Stone's talents been so maximized. She gives her horny single mom character depth and humour. Lange, meanwhile, is flawless as a rich and flaky animal "communicator," who can't seem to stand Don, or people for that matter. Conroy is perfectly pursed as a stiff suit who has neatly folded up her soul and traded it in for a realtor licence, and Swinton vibrates with an unsettling instability as a junkyard hillbilly who will undoubtedly meet her demise at the end of a rifle.

Through these brief encounters with Don, we see how his old flames cope with a living reminder that somewhere along the line, their lives ended up drastically different from how they intended them to be. And we also feel the weight of Murray's quiet mid-life crisis build with each interaction. But this heaviness only makes his impeccably timed one-liners that much funnier and appreciated.

It seems that in not writing characters inspired by his rock star friends, Jarmusch has created his most layered and complex film to date, and thanks to Murray, he does it without betraying his cool.

Broken Flowers opens Friday, Aug. 12

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