Tom Waits Plays a Weird Reclusive Dad in Teaser for Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’

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Aug 30

Written By Jonathan P. Moustakas

Tom Waits in 'Father Mother Sister Brother.' **Courtesy of Mubi**

Jim Jarmusch returns with an offbeat family anthology led by Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, and Charlotte Rampling — a quietly surreal spin on generational ties.

Jim Jarmusch has always thrived on the strange rhythms of human connection, and his latest project looks to double down on that fascination. The filmmaker has unveiled the first teaser for Father Mother Sister Brother, an anthology feature that weaves three loosely connected stories about adult children confronting their parents — or being confronted by them.

Like Mystery Train, Night on Earth, and Coffee and Cigarettes, the film uses the anthology structure to explore fractured intimacies and deadpan absurdity. The “Father” chapter stars Tom Waits as a reclusive patriarch tucked away in the Northeast, whose long silence is broken when his grown children, played by Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik, arrive to reconnect. The teaser captures Jarmusch’s trademark humor in miniature: Waits solemnly proposes a toast to “family relations” over tea, only for Driver to question whether one can toast with tea at all, and Bialik to cut through the awkwardness with a perfectly timed “Really?”

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The “Brother Sister” section shifts to Paris, where twins played by Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat reunite in their childhood apartment amid a family tragedy. And “Mother” takes place in Dublin, with Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps as sisters paying a visit to their formidable novelist mother, played by Charlotte Rampling. In true Jarmusch fashion, what could be sentimental becomes strangely acerbic — Rampling, eyeing the red accents in their clothes, snipes, “How embarrassing that we’re accidentally color-coordinated.”

In a director’s statement, Jarmusch called the film “a kind of anti-action film, its subtle and quiet style carefully constructed to allow small details to accumulate — almost like flowers being carefully placed in three delicate arrangements.” That description feels in line with the teaser, which suggests an atmosphere closer to chamber piece than grand drama, building tension out of pauses, quirks, and understated comic rhythms.

The film marks Jarmusch’s first in six years, following 2019’s The Dead Don’t Die. Father Mother Sister Brother will premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 30 before arriving in U.S. theaters on December 24 via Mubi.