She wrote me a letter

Movie: Broken Flowers. Bill Murray continues his quest for minimalism. A moody, slow moving piece with virtually no end payoff other than retrospection. And I’m guessing retrospection is the main theme of the movie. We’re told Murray’s character is or was quite the playboy, though there is no evidence of anything enigmatic or interesting about him. Rather, he’s turned into a couch potato. Juxtaposed against this is his neighbour’s idyllic family life that he lacks. Speaking as a hopelessly single person who keeps getting older every year, one tends to look at the potential lives one could have had that slipped by, for one reason or another, and how they had the potential to be so much more fulfilling than what little exists in the present. Murray’s neighbour Winston (played by excellent actor Jeffrey Wright who is once again brilliant) spurs him on a quest to find out if an anonymous letter he received is true and who wrote it. So he reflects on a handful of past relationships by visiting the women he was involved with. They mostly seem to have moved on and created lives for themselves while Murray has remained in the same rut, contributing nothing, leaving no legacy. Also worth pondering: if one’s name is associated with a certain type of person but one is unaware of that type, is one obligated to become that type?