Jim Jarmusch, one of the heroes of American independent filmmaking, is a longtime specialist in the tenuous relationships of free agents. With his new film, “Father Mother Sister Brother” (opening Dec. 24 at Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center), he turns his attention to family bonds and finds them to be similarly uncertain—and perhaps all the more dubious owing to the pretense of their firmness. What’s more, he makes his case ambitiously and inventively, by way of a three-part feature showing three families in different countries facing wildly disparate circumstances.
Cate Blanchett in “Father Mother Sister Brother.”Photograph by Yorick Le Saux / Cou…
Jim Jarmusch, one of the heroes of American independent filmmaking, is a longtime specialist in the tenuous relationships of free agents. With his new film, “Father Mother Sister Brother” (opening Dec. 24 at Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center), he turns his attention to family bonds and finds them to be similarly uncertain—and perhaps all the more dubious owing to the pretense of their firmness. What’s more, he makes his case ambitiously and inventively, by way of a three-part feature showing three families in different countries facing wildly disparate circumstances.
Cate Blanchett in “Father Mother Sister Brother.”Photograph by Yorick Le Saux / Courtesy © Vague Notion 2024
The first part, set in rural New Jersey, brings two siblings, Emily (Mayim Bialik) and Jeff (Adam Driver), on a mission of mercy to their father (Tom Waits), a solitary eccentric whose lifelong financial irresponsibility sparks Emily’s anger and Jeff’s solicitude. In the second, a successful author (Charlotte Rampling) living in Dublin receives her annual visit from her daughters, one a rigid bureaucrat (Cate Blanchett) and the other a scuffling bohemian (Vicky Krieps). The last and most expansive episode, set in Paris and filled with alluring street scenes, features the fraternal twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat), who reconvene there upon their parents’ accidental deaths. As the twins revisit the family’s apartment and contemplate their memorabilia, they also rediscover their parents’ free-spirited legacy, and reconnect with each other.
Despite the drastic differences between the three families, Jarmusch emphasizes their similarities by way of drolly idiosyncratic echoes and recurrences—all three pay unusual attention to water and to watches, and all three use the term “Nowheresville” and the old-fashioned catchphrase “Bob’s your uncle.” “Father Mother Sister Brother” is an unusually plainspoken entry in the Jarmusch cinematic universe—it’s neither as minimalistically stylized as “Paterson” nor as decoratively wild as “The Dead Don’t Die”; rather, it’s principally a textual experiment that suggests, even quasi-scientifically, the underlying universality of families amid their aesthetic differences. Yet, between its melancholy view of disconnection and incomprehension, it offers a hint of ironic optimism about what a family’s future depends on—namely, its past.—Richard Brody
About Town
Dance
When the French choreographer Hervé Koubi discovered his hidden heritage, he took the common step of visiting the country of his roots: Algeria. His next move was much less ordinary: creating a piece with street dancers from the area. That 2013 work, “What the Day Owes to Night,” is a mesmerizing poetic vision. Bare-chested men in culottes drift, tumble, and spin—on their feet, like dervishes, and on their heads, like b-boys. They hurl one another through the air at trampoline heights. This breakthrough piece introduced a mode that Koubi has repeated in subsequent works with somewhat diminishing returns. Now the original blows back into town, performed by his Compagnie Hervé Koubi.—Brian Seibert (Joyce Theatre; Jan. 6-11.)
Hip-Hop
In the late nineties, the brothers Terrence and Gene Thornton, who rapped as Pusha T and Malice, surfaced from Virginia Beach as the coke-rap auteurs Clipse, under the stewardship of the Neptunes production team. In 2010, the duo separated, going opposite directions; Malice sought repentance through the church while Pusha became a hatchet man for Kanye West. This year, Clipse made its triumphant return after a sixteen-year hiatus with “Let God Sort Em Out,” a legacy work now nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. The LP is such a milestone that even some of the group’s competitors for the honor—Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator—contribute reverential verses. The album, which is also a reunion with Pharrell, feels as nostalgic as a homecoming, as the siblings assess a history of drug trafficking with clear eyes.—Sheldon Pearce (Brooklyn Paramount; Dec. 30.)
Art
“Autorretrato, México” (“Self-Portrait, Mexico”), from 1989.Photograph by Graciela Iturbide / Courtesy Fundación MAPFRE
Graciela Iturbide’s tranquil images court the uncanny without fear or shame. It’s a daring but understated mirth that leads the photographer to the rough edges of the world. There, she captures—for example—a goat awaiting slaughter, a woman in a bridal gown donning a skeleton mask, a smiling child holding a rooster by its wings. The images in her show “Serious Play” are largely focussed on her home country, Mexico. Her camera finds its way through the naked, strange beauty of a masquerade procession in the street; across the desert skies, where she lands on the elegant stillness of a lone cactus; to forgotten corners where all manner of things are left behind—prosthetic legs or severed hooves or the simple flicker of a shadow—and then renewed, turned inside out by the lens.—Zoë Hopkins (International Center of Photography; through Jan. 12.)
Broadway
In Anne Kauffman’s pristine Broadway revival of Jordan Harrison’s sci-fi drama “Marjorie Prime,” from 2014, the increasingly forgetful Marjorie (a luminous, ninety-six-year-old June Squibb) interacts with a so-called Prime, a hyper-realistic re-creation of her long-dead husband, Walter (Christopher Lowell). The Prime helpfully regurgitates Marjorie’s own life stories, though her daughter Tess (Cynthia Nixon) and son-in-law Jon (Danny Burstein) don’t agree about how truthful this pseudo-Walter should be. Technology has caught up to Harrison’s invention—generative-A.I. companies are already selling you a version of your much-missed grandma. Since Harrison uses silences, abbreviated scenes, and long pauses to suggest loss, he leaves us plenty of time to think . . . and to register the crawling horror under the poignant narrative before us.—Helen Shaw (Reviewed in our issue of 12/22/25.) (Hayes; through Feb. 15.)
Jazz
Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap.Photograph by Evelyn Freja
A stroke of inspiration led the boundary-pushing vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater to pair up with the impressionist pianist Bill Charlap. Though both are distinguished Grammy-winning jazz greats—the former, an N.E.A. Jazz Master, the latter, a renowned trio leader who has played with Barbra Streisand, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Tony Bennett—they might not seem like a natural match. But Bridgewater saw a potential kinship, and, in June, after a few shows testing its chemistry, the duo released “Elemental,” a collaborative album spanning the catalogues of Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Fats Waller, and more. The music is charming and jaunty, its looseness and zest owed to an alchemical balance between these two performers.—S. P. (Birdland; Jan. 6-10.)
Movies
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson bring joyful energy to “Song Sung Blue,” the director Craig Brewer’s perky yet maudlin musical melodrama about the real-life professional and romantic partnership of Mike Sardina and Claire Stengl, who formed a Neil Diamond tribute act, called Lightning and Thunder, in Milwaukee. Mike, a mechanic, and Claire, a hairdresser, struggle in the local musical scene until a chance backstage encounter sparks Claire’s inspired recognition of Mike’s resemblance to Diamond. Their rehearsals lead to love, and these warm and vigorous scenes are the best in the film. The script, following their career’s ups (opening for Pearl Jam) and downs (a gig at a biker bar) is merely methodical; Hudson’s stage presence and tangy accent steal the show.—Richard Brody (Opening Dec. 25.)
On and Off the Avenue
Rachel Syme counts down with nonalcoholic bubbly.
Illustration by Jiyung Lee
December, typically, is a month of excess: too much spending, too much eggnog. But, according to a recent study, Americans are drinking less alcohol now than they have in thirty years; weekly drinks per capita have not been this low since 1995. There are many possible reasons for this shift—increased health consciousness, changing socialization patterns among young people, the rise of legal cannabis—but, whatever the cause, the libations market is now exploding with intriguing boozeless beverages. There have never been so many ways to feel festive without risking a hangover (or a holiday-party faux pas). It used to be, if you wanted to pop a bottle of something sparkly and sober-friendly, your only choice was Martinelli’s sparkling cider. But now, there are options galore. One corner of the non-alcoholic drink world that is truly booming is that of elegant champagne alternatives. French Bloom, a brand of alcohol-free sparkling wine launched in 2019 by friends Maggie Frerejean-Taittinger and Constance Jablonski, received a major investment from LVMH in 2024 and has been steadily growing as the fashion set’s favorite imitation brut (a bottle of their signature Le Blanc costs $39). Les Marées, from the South of France, makes its cheery bottles of N.A. Blanc des Blancs ($22) from organic French Chardonnay grapes, while Misty Cliffs sources its de-alcoholized sparkling brut ($26) from South African vineyards. If you are looking for cans, the Oregon-based brand Union Wine Co. recently released its new N.A. Underwood sparkling rosé, which comes in a four-pack for $28. Don’t let this year fizzle without a little fizz.
P.S. Good stuff on the internet: