The Dead Don’t Die

Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Director: Jim Jarmusch

Quick Impressions:
This deliberately strange, star-studded zom-com hooked us instantly with its odd-yet-charming theatrical trailer. (By the way, who would have guessed twenty years ago that the zom-com would have developed into such a teeming sub-genre of film! Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and Warm Bodies spring instantly to mind. Give me a second to think, and I’ll name ten more.)

I’m actually not a big zombie fan. Of all supernatural monstery things, I like zombies least because they are gross. (My qualms are visceral, not intellectual, although from an intellectual standpoint, zombies are also pretty gross.) I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any serious zombie movie (that wasn’t in black and white), and I’ve definitely never seen The Walking Dead (although my son and I were briefly inconvenienced when Fear the Walking Dead filmed for weeks on end at our favorite park next to our walking trail, forcing us to reroute our noisy, off-road adventures. It was funny when some production assistant initially approached us saying, “Don’t worry if you see any monsters running through the woods,” once I realized he was not creeping closer and closer out of a desire to kill me. True, most children hang out at the playground, but a lot of people walk their dogs on that trail, so maybe posting a sign would have been more effective than hoping park goers happened across the creeping assistant before the zombies).

At any rate, my husband and I sought out The Dead Don’t Die for the dead pan comedy, not the flesh-eating gore. How could we resist the idea of police officers Bill Murray and Adam Driver patrolling the tiny town of Centerville, calmly trading their observations about an unexpected zombie outbreak? And then, about thirty seconds into the trailer, Tilda Swinton shows up as a Scottish samurai/mortician “because of course she does.” (I can’t remember which one of us said that to the other.) That premise and those characters completely sold us on the movie. We had to see it.

And we loved it. We saw it at an advanced screening Tuesday night with a large and extremely responsive audience who laughed loudly and often and seemed enchanted with the whole thing. (Strangely, they all appeared to be about twenty years older than we are, but that may be more about the theater than the movie.) I can’t imagine that this movie will appeal to everyone. (I do think that young people would like it, too. There just weren’t any at our screening.) My husband predicts that it will be polarizing, provoking strong reactions, both positive and negative. I have to agree. This is the kind of movie destined to receive a mix of one and ten star reviews. It’s a strange film, perhaps a bit less than the sum of its parts. But it’s so quirky and charming, anchored by such fantastic performances by Murray and Driver (and a perfect exit by Swinton) that its shortcomings hardly matter.

The Good:
Adam Driver is amazing…in this and everything else. Every time I see him in a new film, he impresses me a little bit more. (He even looks good in uniform. What can’t he do?) Everyone knows that Bill Murray is hilarious. He’s wonderful with low key, deadpan humor. But Driver turns out to be a perfect scene partner for him. They’re hilarious together. Honestly, Driver may even be funnier. The fact that he’s paired with Bill Murray, and yet he stands out as the funny one just makes his performance so impressive. It’s not really that he’s better than Murray. It’s more that usually no one else is comparable, and who knew that Adam Driver had such an amazing gift for comedy?

Driver is definitely the standout of this film. Even if you end up hating the movie, you should watch it anyway, just for the amazing comedic performance by Driver and the astonishing chemistry he has with Murray.

Tilda Swinton is also everything you would hope and have come to expect. Her character just keeps getting stranger and stranger. It’s like she said to herself, “Hmm. I’m a Scottish mortician/samurai in a small American town. Now how can I make this character more unusual?”

As I watched the film, I did find myself wondering if the actors ad-libbed a lot or helped to create their own characters during rehearsal. I haven’t seen Jim Jarmusch’s other films (which is now seeming like a big mistake. I’ve heard of Coffee and Cigarettes and Broken Flowers, but before I met my husband, luring some companion to every movie that interested me was nearly impossible). Anyway, I’d love to know more about Jarmusch’s process. Some of these characters seem to have much more to do than others, which suggests to me that the actors are creating business for themselves, and those with an aptitude for inventing material are faring better. If not, I’m not sure why some characters seem so much more idiosyncratic and busy than others.

The pacing of this movie is “deliberately plodding” as my husband aptly put it. Imagine a zombie’s slow, jerky walk. That’s the way the movie unfolds. It’s extremely slow. Given the strangeness and urgency of the situation, the characters speak so slowly. Their speech and gestures are measured, calm, as if they are reacting to mundane events, not zombie horrors.

The dialogue is hilarious, and the line delivery is usually outstanding. Steve Buscemi is particularly good at delivering his lines. Often he acts without a scene partner, yet he still manages to make what he says screamingly funny, just from the way he says it.

A zillion other famous people also appear in this movie, like Danny Glover, Selena Gomez, Caleb Landry Jones, Chloë Sevigny, Iggy Pop, RZA, Carol Kane, Rosie Perez (who made me laugh multiple times), Tom Waits, and the composer of the film’s theme song, “The Dead Don’t Die,” Sturgill Simpson. (It actually is a pretty catchy song.) I’m not as familiar with Larry Fessenden, but he also has some great moments.

The movie is often funny, sometimes clever, blatantly political, and perhaps also insightful. It’s full of silly meta jokes and lines that become funnier with repetition. It also has a pretty clear (and somewhat shallow) political message. Obviously Centerville is not such a nice place to live. The entire town is overrun with zombies. The living are practically zombies already, and the dead don’t die. Only those outside this society (for one reason or another) escape its doom. It’s hard to miss the pointed message that complacent trust in centrist ideology leads to disaster. Pick a side, and engage in what’s going on in the world.  But there’s perhaps a deeper, more philosophical way of understanding this movie, too. All the silly meta jokes about the theme song and the script suggested to my husband that each character in the story might represent a different type of person, a unique way someone responds to a crisis. I think he’s onto something there, but I need to see the movie again before drawing any conclusions.

Best Scene:
I’m extremely partial to the slowly unfolding conversation just after the first bodies are discovered in the diner. I find it astonishing that simple repetition could be so humorous.

Also pretty great is Adam Driver’s refusal to comfort Chloë Sevigny with false hope.

Best Scene Visually:
I do like the way the zombies move. They look like street performers trained in dance.

The movie certainly offers a lot of eye catching details, but what I remember most is the way the camera reverently gazes at Selena Gomez’s car. And also our final look at Gomez herself.

I’m also a fan of the way the patrol car windows look near the end as the three officers sit inside in growing horror.

Best Action Sequence:
Probably best is Tilda Swinton’s drive through town which culminates in an unexpected moment (unexpected to the characters.  The audience is given some pretty pointed hints before this).

The Negatives:
More should be done with some of these characters. Carol Kane is barely in the movie (though the moment she gets is great), and Selena Gomez needs a bigger part. (If I were a Selena Gomez fan, I would be getting so frustrated with her movie roles at this point.  I’m not saying I dislike Gomez, just that I’m not choosing films because I’m desperate to see her.  If she’s bringing her own audience, they’ve got to be hungering for more.)  Caleb Landry Jones and Danny Glover are pretty engaging together, but their scenes are somehow lacking. I’m not sure what specifically would improve those scenes, but I wasn’t satisfied with what the movie gives us. I also wanted more closure for the kids in the juvenile detention center (Maya Delmont, Taliyah Whitaker, and Jahi Di’Allo Winston).  From my point of view, The Dead Don’t Die begins so many character interactions loaded with potential, but it doesn’t actualize all of that potential.  Not every side story is resolved in a satisfactory way.  We’re often left hanging.  I realize that movies have supporting characters and not everyone can be the lead, but the way this film is set up leads us to expect more resolution from some of these side storylines.