FILM REVIEW: Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Part of the Jim Jarmusch ‘All About the Masters’ Series

~ Greatest Favorite ~

In February 2013, some friends and I made a trip to the Mall of America. It was a very long trip, as it had snowed heavily the night before departure, prompting us to take the long way to Minneapolis. We were initially flabbergasted by the scale and size of the Mall, but it didn’t take long for us (or me, at least) to realize that in the end, these were the same old stores we have back in our same old freezing hometown. In retrospect, I felt like the central trio of characters in Stranger Than Paradise and their impromptu trip to Florida and all of its same-old, same-old blandness.

Thus, we are with Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 breakthrough, Stranger Than Paradise, charmingly simplistic and wittily clever satire of the quirkily dull world of America and all of its slang, football, sunglasses, and TV dinners.

New Yorker Willie (John Lurie) is drifting through life in a shabby apartment, a card game with the guys here, a TV ballgame there, with plenty of laying in bed in between. Sometimes he’s joined by his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) – though he’s a bit more optimistic and lighthearted than Willie, he’s essentially the same person. This comfort in stillness is interrupted by a two-week visit from Eva (Eszter Balint), his cousin fresh off the plane from Hungary. Willie is indifferent about this visit, considering his apprehension to his Hungarian roots, but he teaches her some lingo and ways of American living – the alien nature of it all leaves her unable to decide whether to laugh or be bored out of her mind.

A year passes. Eva has moved on to live with her aunt in Cleveland. Willie and Eddie go on about their monotony, but something compels them to visit Eva. So, with $600 in pocket fresh from a card game, the two hop in their car all the way to Cleveland to Eva’s delight, but nonetheless greeted by the same drabness from their home city (and seemingly everywhere else), but now they’ve got each other. This renewed unity between the three sparks a trip to Paradise (a.k.a., Florida), because why not?

From the writing to the locations to the photography, Jarmusch downplays absolutely everything to its driest core. It’s an acquired taste for sure, but the result of Stranger Than Paradise is one that is absolutely charming, and its strengths are the little moments that break up the monotony, no matter how slight or insignificant said moments are. Take, for instance, when Willie and Eddie first visit Eva at her workplace in Cleveland, where they veil themselves as much as possible so she won’t recognize them at first. The look on her face upon recognition is absolutely wonderful. Stranger Than Paradise is filled with moments like these, but it never once oversteps its boundaries, always staying grounded in its drab tone.

This is partly in thanks to the wonderful abilities of Lurie, Edson, and the gorgeous Balint, who I sincerely believe to be three tragically underrated actors in movies, not because of chameleon-like abilities to transform into other people, but in their ability to stay perfectly in sync with the film’s tone, knowing exactly when and how much to nudge their humorous energy, but always staying in their lane, so to speak.

The visual style is perhaps the most key element of Stranger Than Paradise. Each scene plays out in nearly one take, but these aren’t sprawling tracking shots like that of GoodFellas or the works of Gaspar Noe. Here, Jarmusch observes the action in some sort of enclosed space, with an occasional pan to the left or right to keep the action (for lack of a better way to put it). Like life itself, there are no kinetic cuts from one important piece of action or dialogue to another. Rather, life is one continuous take with lots of nothing occasionally broken up by a remark here or gesture there, sometimes set to the background score of rock n’ roll – Jarmusch is pretty particular on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins here.

Satire is one of the most grossly misused words in the English language, so let me clarify that we are talking about commentary through parody (satire), rather than just parody itself (parody). Now that we’ve cleared that out of the way; yes, there is satire present throughout the film, but it is not self-righteous, pious or smug. In fact, like Jarmusch’s body of work in general, it’s quite humble. It’s there and can spark an interesting conversation afterward, but the satire is a result of the material itself, rather than the material existing for the satire.

Is Stranger Than Paradise for everyone? Absolutely not. Many will be turned off by its dry humor and minimal style, and if these kinds of movies aren’t your thing, I highly doubt this Jarmusch classic will do anything to win you over, but here we are, 35 years later, and Stranger Than Paradise still stands the test of time as a timeless classic in what is perhaps the quintessential indie film.