Stranger Than Paradise

Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, Stranger Than Paradise follows a trio of oddball characters (John Lurie’s Willie, Eszter Balint’s Eva, and Richard Edson’s Eddie) as they participate in a series of low-key adventures. It’s an almost extraordinarily subdued premise that’s employed to impressively watchable effect by Jarmusch, as the filmmaker does a superb job of slowly-but-surely transforming each of the three central characters into sympathetic, interesting figures – with the compelling bond that forms between them ensuring that the movie becomes more and more engrossing as it progresses. Jarmusch does, however, ask for a fair amount of patience from the viewer, as Stranger Than Paradise boasts an opening half hour that is, to put it mildly, far from plot heavy – with the writer/director instead offering up a series of vignettes set within the cramped confines of Willie’s sketchy apartment. It’s passable yet underwhelming stuff that’s nevertheless enhanced by Jarmusch’s palpable style and the appealingly deadpan work of the movie’s stars, with the film’s shift into an engaging drama triggered by the characters’ expectedly off-kilter journey to Cleveland and, eventually, Florida. There’s ultimately little doubt that Stranger Than Paradise‘s success depends entirely on one’s ability to get onto Jarmusch’s very specific wavelength, and it is, as such, impossible not to peg the film as a love-it-or-hate-it sort of endeavor.

*** out of ****