Singers without a song

The film is shot in black (coffee) and white (cigarettes), and it is not a proper movie at all. A distinguished cast populate a series of unrelated episodes. They take coffee and cigarettes, and just talk.

Although an American film, this is about as far from Hollywood as you could get. New York's Jim Jarmusch is the director and, though fashionable in some circles, is not a blockbuster man. Nor, on this evidence, can he put together a dozen or so shorts of anything like even quality.

This is a curate's egg, but when it is good, it is very good indeed. In one episode Cate Blanchett plays herself as a film star and also her country cousin. The cousin is bitterly jealous of the star but tries to disguise it. The result is a brilliant piece of acting. In another short a successful Steve Coogan meets an uncertain Alfred Molina and the pair produce an actorish duet of one-upmanship. This is marvellous too, the best-written part of the film.

There are other nice things, such as Bill Murray as a waiter in Delirium conversing with rappers GZA and RZA about coffee as a health hazard, and Tom Waits and Iggy Pop in Somewhere in California quietly furious that the jukebox doesn't contain a song by either of them.

The rest is mostly dross, despite well-known faces. But the gold glitters nicely and is worth three stars.

Coffee And Cigarettes
Cert: 15