Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Truly Dreadful Film

Sorry, this movie sucks

Pretty Good

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

"Stranger than Paradise" is so straightforward and simple that you could easily mistake Jim Jarmusch's approach for cockiness. A three-part film comprised of single-take scenes, the bones of the film are so bare that you have to wonder how a filmmaker can be so nonchalant as if expecting the audience will bother to meet him where he's at.The film follows first generation American turned New York hipster Willie (John Lurie) who is tasked with hosting his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) from Budapest before she moves out to Cleveland to live with his aunt, then a year later follows Willie and his best friend Eddie (Richard Edson) as they road trip to Cleveland to visit Eva and finally the three's spontaneous trip to Florida.Jarmusch's story is essential a alternative distillation of the American dream. It features an unglamorous immigrant story, two guys who see success as gambling their way into good fortune and a Florida vacation that's ten times worse than whatever picture you currently hold in your mind for a Florida vacation. Jarmusch presents these in short scenes that end with fades to black, usually brief moments of character interaction in which at best we get a flavor of who these people are and how they feel about each other. The tone is somewhere been mundane and laid back, with the occasional moments of drama and levity feeling like major breakthroughs in storytelling.As such, the audience has to be patient and do a little work to access the real fruit of Jarmusch's labor — yet not in the decoding sense. He puts everything right out there; we have to draw our own connections as to what the value of a particular vignette could be. Presumably, he wants our own experiences to inform the subtle drama and dynamics between characters.So it takes a certain frame of mind to take something away from "Stranger than Paradise." Jarmusch puts it all out there, but not on a silver platter. He delivers this film with such poise and sure-handedness, the kind you might only expect from an established, confident auteur. He knows the story he wants to tell and how he wants to tell it, and he's not concerned with what anyone expects or wants. Naturally, it makes "Stranger than Paradise" far from a crowd-pleaser, yet for anyone interested in the nuance of filmmaking and visual storytelling, it's a really admirable, approach with a distinct vision.~Steven CThanks for reading! Visit Movie Muse Reviews for more

A good movie for film-making students and film fans in general. This movies sends it message not just by the story itself, but uses all of the possible elements to aid the story: Starting with the theme color of this movie, gray, even though the film was made after the colored movies era began, the director decided to use black and white in order no enhance the feeling of solitary that the characters show. It also helps to make both states look about the same, to show that loneliness doesn't differ no matter where you go. The angles and shot sizes: The fixed cams use prevents the observer from feeling strong emotions to a particular character, thus strengthening the message of the movie. same goes for the sound and decoration. Now, to the story, A will written story with good storytelling, it does get boring sometimes, but it is surely worth watching. It combines Drama and Comedy and gets the watcher feel emotionally connected to the plot as if it reflects something from his own life, without getting him connected to the characters themselves, which, in my own opinion, was a brilliant thing to do.

This is the film that really set independent films off. This film really started the trend. This film questioned the formulas and trends that people knew and loved in the 80s and tore them down. When it came out, this film was really unlike anything else seen. It baffles the mind that our heroes, our stars of the film have no motivations are so lazy and really don't care to do anything at all. But its also brilliant and so real. Nobody before then would have really thought of to make a film about two lazy people that smoke chesterfields and hang around the house. The cinematography is beautiful and very memorable. I believe its a story of human mediocrity and normalcy that is much needed to be told. A great film that could get anyone in Jim Jarmusch and get anyone into independent cinema

"Stranger Than Paradise" is an offbeat, low-budget, black and white film about a slacker who meets his immigrant cousin and the effect she has on his life. Willie- our hero- is disgusted when he first meets Eva… he seems to be in denial of his Hungarian heritage and ashamed of his family. But she slowly, quietly makes an impression on him, and when she leaves New York for Cleveland, Willie and his friend Eddie- the wonderful Richard Edson- make their way to see her.She is stuck, Americanized, working in a hot dog stand, living with an elderly Aunt who is either unable or unwilling to speak English. Eva tells the fellows that she would like to be "rescued" and "kidnapped" because she hates her life, so the trio ventures down to the paradise of Florida.There was a very obvious choice made by Director Jim Jarmusch to have minimal dialogue, which adds to the film's deliberate, unpolished feel, but just as often seems completely unrealistic. For such a stark, proudly-independent feel Jarmusch employs a brazen deus ex machina to resolve the dead-end storyline: Eva is simply walking along the street when a jive-talking black man hands her an envelope stuffed with cash. Is this her reward for being a Screaming Jay Hawkins fan? I don't think so.The movie came to a perfect ending: Willie boards the plane, rejecting America, rejecting the culture that drove him to become a card sharp and gambler, and returns to Budapest where he will finally embrace his roots and true identity and start life over. The final shot is Eva returning to her Florida hotel room. Maybe she has to subject herself to more suffering and loneliness in the States before she is able to make the same transformation. "Stranger Than Paradise" is thought-provoking and entirely original, and that alone makes it worth seeing.GRADE: B-