Night on Earth (1991, Jim Jarmusch) (Patreon)

56/100

Second viewing, last seen during its original theatrical release. Still strikes me as the most frustratingly half-assed Jarmusch film—his version of what I call the "card-catalogue movie," except that instead of beginning with a topic, he clearly selected these five locations (along with much of the cast, I'm guessing) and then devised a perfunctory scenario for each. Geographical diversity is the main thing Night on Earth has going for it, and even that's fairly limited (he'd likely get dragged a bit today for confining himself entirely to the U.S. and Europe); in any case, setting all of the vignettes inside cabs forces them to be fundamentally performance-driven, as we get only occasional, fleeting views of the cities (mostly at the outset of each episode). Individual stories range from decent (New York, Helsinki) to dire (Rome), with the median squarely on blah (Los Angeles, Paris). Gets off on the wrong foot with one of Winona Ryder's all-time worst performances—she's trying so painfully hard to inhabit the sort of tough-cookie role that Natasha Lyonne now automatically gets, and it's well beyond her range. Esposito and Mueller-Stahl have enough crackle-pop chemistry (with an assist from Rosie Perez) to paper over the general flimsiness, and come closest to achieving the Jarmuschian ideal of excellent, arresting company. Dalle's character's blindness fuels some tediously combative dialogue but mostly functions as setup for a cutesy ironic ending; Benigni just does his voluble, ribald thing in what's essentially an open-mic monologue—not my bag (and I'm a Life Is Beautiful defender). And while the Helsinki story concludes matters on a relatively high note, it still inevitably feels kinda like Kaurismäki Lite. (Plus the driver's tale of woe would be far more devastating, imo, had he been unable to defrost his heart after the child unexpectedly lived. Too grim for Jim, I think.) There are Jarmusch films I like a whole lot less than this one—Permanent Vacation and The Limits of Control* are both in Ugh territory—but he'd probably prefer active disdain to a verdict of "perfectly watchable."

* Interestingly—and significantly, to my mind—Permanent Vacation, Night on Earth and The Limits of Control are the only "proper" narrative features Jarmusch has made that haven't premiered at Cannes. (I'm not counting Coffee and Cigarettes, which is really a collection of shorts.) Had Cannes rejected Broken Flowers as well, they'd be batting 1.000.