Jim Jarmusch’s new feature Father Mother Sister Brother, world-premiered in the international competition of this year’s Venice Film Festival, once again confirms the US auteur’s talent for distilling the seemingly banal into cinematic grace. Structured as a triptych, the film circles around adult children reconnecting – willingly or not – with their parents, in encounters that veer from the comical to the quietly excruciating. Shot across three countries and carried by a striking cast, it is at once modest and ambitious, a chamber piece that lingers on pauses, silences and the minor rituals of life.

The opening chapter, Father, is set in the snowy woods of the USA, where a retired, eccentric patriarch played with wry gusto by Tom Waits receives a visit from his grown-up children. Adam Driver, bamboozled as ever, and Mayim Bialik, cast against type, play the reluctant visitors, who must navigate their father’s undecipherable behaviour and oddball routines. The comedy here stems from small absurdities – toasting with glasses filled with water, awkward silences stretched too far and so on – and Jarmusch allows these moments to unfold without forcing the punchline.

The second chapter, Mother, shifts to Dublin. Charlotte Rampling embodies a celebrated but emotionally distant writer, whose strained reunion with her two estranged daughters (played by Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps) once more becomes an opportunity for saying what remains unsaid. Jarmusch frames the encounters around a tea table, where a tray of pastel-coloured pastries gradually disappears as time passes, a delicate visual marker. Here, the humour is sharp, tinged with melancholy and steeped in Jarmusch’s affection for theatrical rhythm.

The final story, Sister Brother, brings us to Paris, where two siblings return to their late parents’ home for one last visit. Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat prove a charismatic duo, capturing the push-and-pull of sibling intimacy – bickering, joking and suddenly slipping into raw confession. This chapter begins in a minor key, almost hesitant in tone, but gradually deepens into the most affecting portrayal of the three. It depicts not only the end of a family era, but also the unease of adulthood.

Threaded through all three tales is the motif of waiting, of having nothing of significance to say, and yet being forced into proximity. Jarmusch captures the everyday embarrassment of silence – waiting for an Uber can become agony – when human connection seems both impossible and necessary. The recurrent appearances of young skateboarders, drifting in and out of the frame, add a note of mystery, although their presence ultimately feels pointless, perhaps by design.

Visually, the film maintains a restrained elegance. Close framing dominates, pulling us into faces, gestures and glances, while occasional overhead shots expand the perspective. The cinematography by Frederick Elmes and Yorick Le Saux is understated, often favouring soft light and natural tones.

Overall, the picture is less about narrative propulsion than it is about mood and observation. Its humour is quirky but never cruel, its melancholy understated, rather than melodramatic. What emerges is a film that is about dysfunctional families on the surface, but more profoundly about the peculiar discomfort of ordinary human contact. It finds tenderness in trivial gestures and celebrates the rituals – a shared cup of coffee, a joke repeated too often – that bind people together in spite of themselves.

It is a small film, but in the best sense: sincere and imbued with Jarmusch’s love for the fleeting oddities of daily life.

Father Mother Sister Brother was produced by US-based badjetlag, France’s CG Cinema and Ireland’s Hail Mary Pictures. The Match Factory is selling the film worldwide.