Tedious experiment

Rating: 1/10 (22 October 2004)

Jim Jarmusch's 2003 film Coffee & Cigarettes is an unbelievable disappointment. Jarmusch is credited as writer as well as director, but it's pretty clear there is no writing in this film. Although he managed to get Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Stephen Wright, Bill Murray and several other noted actors for the film, it's clear they are improvising their lines and situations -- to dismal effect.
I normally love films that boast such casts. Robert Altman's 1993 Shortcuts was an amazing work. The famous cast was a nice touch, but the film would have been great anyway because the stories were all so strong. No such luck with Coffee & Cigarettes.
The premise of Jarmusch's film is showing a dozen vignettes of various pairs of people sitting in some rundown coffee shop, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Their conversations are dismal and uninteresting. Worse, all conversations must contain the actual words "coffee and cigarettes" in them. At best the faux world weariness of these situations and characters seems forced, at worst they are clichéd and stupid.
Jim Jarmusch is an enormously talented director. I can't imagine what he was thinking when he made Coffee & Cigarettes. I can't imagine anyone in a screening room telling him the film works.
Although the cast might tempt you to try this film out, you'd only be wasting your money -- and time -- on it.