‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ Review – Three Families, One Shared Distance

Father Mother Sister Brother is a film that arrives already mid-conversation. There’s no real attempt to hook you and no emotional hand extended at the door. Jim Jarmusch trusts that you’ll sit down, listen, and meet the film where it lives. That confidence is admirable. It’s also where the film will either work on you or leave you feeling shut out. For me, it was mostly the latter.

Written and directed by Jarmusch, the film is divided into three separate stories, each centered on adult children orbiting emotionally distant parents or, in the final chapter, reckoning with their absence. These stories don’t intersect in any literal way, but they echo one another through a recurring interest in the lies people tell to protect themselves and the people they love. It’s a restrained, dialogue-driven film that asks for patience and offers very little catharsis in return.

The first segment, “Father,” is easily the strongest. Set somewhere in a snowy countryside town in the United States, it follows siblings Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) as they drive to visit their estranged, reclusive father, played by Tom Waits. Their mother has passed, and neither sibling seems fully sure how their father is even surviving financially. Emily voices the concern openly, questioning how he manages without social security. Jeff, quieter and more guarded, appears to be secretly helping him, arriving with a box of expensive groceries and an unspoken sense of guilt.

The best in show is easily Waits, who is extraordinary here. He plays the father as a man performing poverty while also maintaining control behind the backs of his kids. He keeps an old, broken-down car parked outside, deliberately leaves the house messy, and brushes off questions with feigned indifference. When Emily notices a Rolex, he insists it’s a fake. He forgets Jeff’s recent divorce, not out of cruelty, but because emotional attention is a language he never learned how to speak. After the siblings leave, the performance drops. The house gets cleaned. The real, functional car comes out. He drives off to meet a friend. It’s a small sequence, but it lands with more weight than anything else in the film. 

The second chapter, “Mother,” shifts to Dublin and introduces Charlotte Rampling as an elderly, famous novelist hosting her once-a-year tea with her daughters, Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps). Despite all three living in the same city, this ritual is their only real point of contact. On the way, Timothea’s car breaks down, and she arrives flustered and desperate to appear composed. Lilith, meanwhile, asks a friend to pretend to be her Uber driver, another lie meant to smooth over her financial reality.

The tea scene itself is awkward and intentionally deflating. Timothea announces a promotion to a city council position related to historic preservation, only to be undercut by Lilith sharing vague “good news” about influencers in her community, a concept neither her mother nor sister understands. In the bathroom, Timothea briefly breaks, overwhelmed by something she can’t quite name. When the visit ends, the three women stand by the door in silence, waiting for the car. It’s a depiction of familial politeness carved into routine, though it never quite finds the emotional release it gestures toward.

The final segment, “Sister Brother,” takes place in Paris and follows twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) after their parents’ sudden death in a plane crash in the Azores. This chapter leans more into memory and absence. In their now-empty childhood apartment, Billy shows Skye old photos, drawings, a Rolex that belonged to their father, along with fake IDs and a fake marriage certificate. These objects suggest lives lived partially in disguise. Their landlord interrupts, revealing she protected their belongings from being seized despite unpaid rent. The siblings later drive through Paris, eventually stopping at a warehouse to look at their parents’ furniture one last time. It’s quietly affecting in concept, though dramatically muted.

Across all three stories, dishonesty isn’t framed as cruelty. It’s shown as self-preservation, sometimes even as care. Jarmusch uses irony and dry humor to keep the film from sinking into misery, but the emotional distance is deliberate and unyielding. That restraint will resonate deeply for some viewers. For others, it creates a sense of removal that’s hard to shake.

The ensemble is strong throughout, and most of the actors meet the film on its own wavelength. Still, Tom Waits towers over everyone else. His performance feels lived-in in a way that gives the film its only real jolt of emotional clarity. His segment alone could stand as a compelling short film.

Ultimately, Father Mother Sister Brother is a film I respect more than I liked. I admire its patience, its faith in silence, and its refusal to spell things out. I also found it underwhelming. The structure leaves little room for moments that truly break through, and the emotional temperature rarely rises above a quiet simmer. There’s care here. You can feel Jarmusch’s affection for these people and the complicated bonds they share. I just wish that care had reached me more directly. Nevertheless, it’s hard for me to not at least admire it.

Father Mother Sister Brother will debut in theaters on December 24, 2025, courtesy of Mubi.