Father Mother Sister Brother Review: LFF 2025

Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver are amongst the stars in family drama Father Mother Sister Brother

In nearly 50 years of film making idiosyncratic auteur Jim Jarmusch has built a repertoire of minimalist movies that are light on plot, creating sparse character studies that explain very little and leave the audience to form their own interpretations. After a brief foray into zombie movies with 2019’s The Dead Don’t Die, Father Mother Sister Brother is his most Jim Jarmusch movie in years.

Split into three separate stories, each segment gives a brief insight into the relationships between three sets of adult children and their parents. In the first, Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik visit their elderly hermit of a dad, played by Tom Waits, out of concern that he may be struggling to take care of himself. In the second, Charlotte Rampling hosts her daughters, played by Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps, for their yearly afternoon tea – despite living nearby, it is the only time they see each other. The final story in the triptych is slightly different, as Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat meet to clear out their recently deceased parents Parisian apartment.

The three segments have motifs and coincidences that carry over – a moment where each of the families realises they’ve all come dressed similarly, another where they each discuss drinking water, and a few odd words or turns of phrases that pop up in each of the scenes. There’s no apparent meaning behind any of this, just Jarmusch’s wry sense of humour.

Father Mother Sister Brother observes how each of the three families rely on a certain level of masking to maintain their relationships, and how little any of them actually know each other. Not really. Driver and Bialik talk in code about their father having previously had some sort of ‘episode’ but refuse to plainly tell him they’re concerned about him, making a show out of an early exit when they get too close to having to discuss feelings.

Rampling’s family are the epitome of the British stiff upper lip, making chilly small talk the likes of which you’d normally expect from strangers, not family. While the Parisians seem to have had a much friendlier relationship, an envelope of documents suggests they didn’t know their parents’ back stories and early lives at all.

Each family also seems to have an out and out liar. Tom Waits grizzled character in the films funniest scene immediately changes into a sleek suit and heads out in his sportscar after his annoying children have left him – clearly having been playing up his frailty for them. Krieps spends her car journey rehearsing a fake story about the great financial success she’s currently experiencing, which she sticks to throughout the excruciating afternoon tea, even when it’s obvious her mother and sister can see through it.

Father Mother Sister Brother is superbly acted, cleverly observed, and funny in places, but its anthology nature means we don’t get enough time to build any particular feeling towards any of these characters. Though it’s not particularly long, it does drag in places (though there are moments when Jarmusch is certainly making us all feel the awkwardness between these characters with full intent.)

Unless viewers are already a fan of Jarmusch’s very particular style of filmmaking, Father Mother Sister Brother is likely to be too boring to hold their interest. For those with the time and sentiment to invest in teasing out their own meaning, there’s a quiet poetry in the threads of these characters.

Father Mother Sister Brother is playing as part of the BFI London Film Festival. A cinema release is expected in December. Trailer

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