Adam Driver is one of the biggest and most critically acclaimed film stars in the world, which makes it all the more surprising that he can pop up for a brief scene in one of the year’s most-praised films, and almost no one has talked about it.
The movie in question is the Finnish drama Fallen Leaves (Kuolleet lehdet) by writer-director Aki Kaurismäki, one of the most prestigious and respected filmmakers in the world. While Adam Driver is arguably best known for his role as the tormented Kylo Ren/Ben Solo in the Disney Star Wars sequel trilogy, he also has a thriving career in more offbeat and artistic films, often working with Academy Award-winning directors like Noah Baumbach, Spike Lee, and Ridley Scott, so it is not all that surprising that he would show up for a cameo in a film by Kaurismäki.
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But Adam Driver’s appearance in Fallen Leaves is actually even weirder than one would expect. The film stars Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen as a pair of lonely working-class people who attempt to forge a relationship despite poverty, the latter’s alcoholism, and their mutual inability to clearly say what’s on their minds. Midway through the film, the couple goes to see a movie, and audiences there for a Finnish arthouse movie are treated to seeing the Star Wars actor and a legendary comedian fighting zombies.
The couple in Fallen Leaves goes to see The Dead Don’t Die (2019), a dark zombie comedy by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, which stars Adam Driver and Bill Murray as a pair of small-town police officers who find themselves facing down a zombie invasion. The film co-stars Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, Caleb Landry Jones, Austin Butler, and Selena Gomez and was largely treated to mixed reviews when it was released.
However, it has gained a small second life in Fallen Leaves. Aki Kaurismäki and Jim Jarmusch are friends and known appreciators of each others’ works, so it can be assumed that one of the latter’s goofier films popping up as a movie within a movie is a bit of an in-joke. At the very least, a few more people got to see Adam Driver fighting zombies with a machete.
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Fallen Leaves currently holds 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and is shortlisted for an Academy Award in the International Feature Film category, making it one of the year’s best-regarded films. Adam Driver will next star as Italian car designer Enzo Ferrari in Ferrari, a film by Michael Mann. There will likely not be any zombies in that one.
Have you seen Fallen Leaves or The Dead Don’t Die? Tell us in the comments below!