In retrospect, we should have known it was only a matter of time before the respective madnesses of Bill Murray and Jim Jarmusch ran together as one.

Murray, the once-breezy funnyman, navigated a fjord of loneliness and deadpan despair in Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" and Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation." Jarmusch, the avant-garde filmmaker whose eerily detached style ("Mystery Train," "Dead Man") paved the way for the likes of Anderson and Coppola. It was meant to be.

Needless to say, Murray and Jarmusch are a match made in droll-humor heaven in "Broken Flowers," a sly, wistfully sardonic tale of a devoutly single ladies' man (Murray) who embarks on a whistle-stop tour of old girlfriends to find the teenage son he never knew he had.

Since "Broken Flowers" has a complex sort of artistic anatomy, it might be useful to pinpoint exactly where the power of the piece lies. It does not, for instance, reside in Jarmusch's skull-smashing use of literary metaphor.
In the opening scene, we find Don Johnston (Murray) glumly watching Douglas Fairbanks get bawled out by his lovers in "The Private Life of Don Juan" (1934). Get it? Don Johnston? Don Juan?

Moments later, outgoing girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) labels him an "over-the-hill Don Juan." The joke is repeated by his meddling-but-well-meaning Ethiopian neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright from "Shaft").

In fact, Jarmusch makes something of a postmodern joke of painfully obvious literary references, particularly when Don — searching for the ex-flame who authored an anonymous pink letter, suggesting the possibility of a son — visits a trailer-park widow (Sharon Stone) and gets flashed by her slutty teenage daughter, Lolita (Alexis Dziena).

Nor is the subdued, expressionist tenor of "Broken Flowers" its best trait. One typical scene has Don silently contemplating a bottle of Moet in the gloaming of his living room. Such moments certainly underscore Don's isolation, but after overuse by every wannabe-Jarmusch film-school grad, they also feel a bit hackneyed.

Which brings us to the real lifeblood of "Broken Flowers": The scenes between Murray and his women, played by Stone (“Basic Instinct”), Frances Conroy “Six Feet Under”), Tilda Swinton (“The Beach”) and "Tootsie" star Jessica Lange (in a hilarious bit as a spaced-out "pet communicator").

Don doesn't explicitly reminisce with these women; instead, their pasts are pantomimed with wounded eyes and curled lips, suggesting tantalizing layers of regret, meaning and romantic mystery. Jarmusch tees up something ambiguous, and Murray hits it out of the park.

‘Broken Flowers'
Starring: Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Frances Conroy
Rating: R (profanity, some graphic nudity and brief drug use) Running time: 105 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday at Harkins Camelview in Scottsdale
GRADE: B