Film review: Coffee and Cigarettes.

Coffee and Cigarettes, which Jim Jarmusch made over 17 years, often during breaks from other projects, is an anthology of conversations, mostly among famous or semi-famous people, who play themselves - sometimes, sort of.

Bill Murray, for example, shows up moonlighting as a waiter, recognised for who he is by his only customers, RZA and GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Cate Blanchett appears in all her glossy, blonde movie-star radiance playing herself, and also, thanks to some unassumingly tricky camera work, her wayward and resentful cousin, who is a brunette.

Under the influence of nicotine and caffeine, and with too much time on their hands, people have a way of getting on one another's nerves. You might think that a meeting between Iggy Pop and Tom Waits would be kind of cool, but in each other's company these musicians turn defensive and aggressive.

Even in the most casual exchanges, hidden agendas and unspoken tensions percolate beneath the surface.

The full richness of Coffee and Cigarettes, can't be isolated in any single moment or performance, though Mr Coogan's self-mocking turn is a repellent tour de force.

This film, which is full of great music, from Mahler to the Skatalites, much of it wafting in from restaurant jukeboxes, has the shrewd esteem of an old LP. Obviously some of the tracks are stronger than others, but the magic lies in the echoes and unexpected harmonies between the selections.

Snatches of conversation and stray thoughts recur like musical motifs, as if the characters were plucking them out of a common foresight of ideas.

According to one of these (attributed to the physicist Nikola Tesla) the entire world is a kind of instrument, a 'transmitter of acoustical resonances.' It's a lovely notion, and the implication that beauty and meaning can be found in odd places at unlikely, idle moments resonates through this lovely film.

Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Dur. 96 mins. Cert. 15.