Review: The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

The Dead Don’t Die (dir. Jim Jarmusch, 2019) – Zombies rise in the quiet town of Centerville, pitting its citizens against an unexpected apocalypse.

Verdict

Auteur Jim Jarmusch lets none of his dark wit obscure what his latest film truly is – a tragic ode to the quiet death of humanity.

Review

Calamity befalls the once peaceful Centerville, where farmer Miller (Steve Buscemi) reports his poultry missing. Soon, police trio Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray), Ronnie Petersen (Adam Driver), and Mindy Morrison (Chloë Sevigny) discover two mutilated corpses at the diner, then two open graves at the cemetery.

“This is all gonna end badly,” Petersen mutters in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, convinced that the town’s destruction is but inevitable.

Consider that a big, pessimistic hint at what Jim Jarmusch may just be saying with his latest elegiac work. Indeed, The Dead Don’t Die is far from a cautionary tale. It is an irate, bitter rebuke against the hordes of us, responsible for the mess that is the world today. 

Lust for life.

The satire is not one for subtlety, either. As the radio bluntly attributes polar fracking to the cause of an imminent apocalypse, the citizens of Centreville look on wide-eyed, helpless in changing things. The state of apathy leaves little wonder why the band of heroes lose hope, just as quickly as the dead alive population grows.

Even the living dead themselves reek of cynicism. Brains are far from their broken minds, yearning for wi-fi and Siri as much as they do, drugs. The new breed of zombies takes a notch up on George A. Romero’s original sociopolitical metaphor; the apocalypse is already here.

Mini Driver.

The dead don’t die, anymore than you and I, Sturgill Simpson croons through the radio, and the analogy could not be anymore brusque. It is almost certain that Jarmusch’s cynicism would find little love in a mainstream audience. Add to that his disinterest in conformity, unafraid to unleash a taste of the outlandish, where the undertaker Zelda (Tilda Swinton) unsheaths her sword before her unpredictable secret.

It all gets a little mad. Yet who can say the real world isn’t just as, if not more absurd? Even with its offbeat tone, the dark satire makes its point loud and clear, and may very well find a cult following with an astute few, privy to Jarmusch’s depressing reality. 

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