5.0
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More mysteries, more trains. Read full review
Critics scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.
out of 100
Metascore®Mixed or average reviewsbased on a weighted average of allcritic review scores.
Jim Jarmusch's Dada meander, shot by Christopher Doyle, is empty and excruciating -- that's really all you need to know.
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Jarmusch is making some kind of a point. I think the point is that if you strip a story down to its bare essentials, you will have very little left. I wonder how he pitched this idea to his investors.
It might be that Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) is experimenting with creating a pastiche of dreamlike sequences that audiences can interpret as they wish. Or it may be merely pretension and hubris that fuels such a stylized and insubstantial story.
Worst of all, it just feels tired and recycled.
The Limits of Control, even with its flow of star cameos (Tilda Swinton, Gael Garca Bernal, a frenetic Bill Murray), is a listless long pause that rarely refreshes.
While The Limits of Control offers some picturesque photography and grist for thought, it is ultimately too much like The Emperor's New Clothes to warrant anything approaching enthusiasm. The message is banal and the means by which it is presented reeks of artifice and pretention.
Unfortunately, the whole seldom adds up to the sum of its illustrious parts, and Jarmusch's trademark deadpan quirks seem to have gotten lost in the translation.
A nondramatic work best appreciated as a pure image-and-sound event.
A little like guided meditation with suggestions floated, waiting, left untethered. It's up to you to distill meaning -- which will leave some convinced the director is merely self-indulgent, and others deeply satisfied.
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