Though I didn't finish this project until the Walker Art Center's Coen Brothers retrospective, Joel & Ethan Coen: Raising Cain, reached its end, I'm still glad I took the opportunity to rewatch all 14 Coen brothers films (including A Serious Man, for the first time). Considering the lack of time I've been able to spend writing here, it was an ambitious goal, though it's given me (along with the Regis Dialogue I attended with them) a much more comprehensive understanding of their films.
Read: A Conversation with the Coens & a Look at Their First Decade (1984-1994)
Read: Joel & Ethan Coen: The Second Decade (1995-2005)
(Title screens via the Walker blog.)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
As I mentioned in Part 1, I saw Blood Simple for the first time only recently, but it made an immediate impression on my understanding of the rest of the Coen's films, particularly No Country for Old Men. This was my favorite movie of 2007, a Best Picture winner, an instant classic, and one of the best movies of the decade. Repeated viewings have done nothing to diminish its stature in my mind, and I continue to gain appreciation for the acting from the supporting cast, notably Kelly MacDonald, who does wonders covering up her thick Scottish accent.
While my wish for a Coen Bros. sighting/introduction (they're here filming A Serious Man) at the promo screening of Burn After Reading last week went unfulfilled, my expectations for a distinctly Coenesque comedy were easily met: bizarre characters, dark humor, and a downward spiraling story.
The star power in Burn After Reading is in stark contrast to most of the Coens' films, including last year's Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, and especially compared to A Serious Man, which will feature no one you've ever heard of. Indeed, the five actors listed on the marquee for Burn After Reading have all been nominated for acting Oscars, and three of them (George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton) have won. Add in the Coens' own writing and directing Oscars and you have what might be the most impressive ensemble of any movie so far this year.
This is not a fact that can be easily overlooked, because the characters written by Joel and Ethan Coen could not be trusted in the hands of amateur actors. From McDormand's neurotic Linda Litzke to John Malkovich's nihilistic Osborne Cox to Brad Pitt's naive Chad Feldheimer, we have some of the most engaging (yet also some of the most one-dimensional) personalities of any of the Coens' thirteen movies. While these three characters left the most distinct impression on me as I look back on Burn After Reading (including my favorite line - Pitt's laugh about the Schwinn), the rest of the cast is most certainly deserving of high praise as well. Richard Jenkins revives and softens his Walter Vale persona from The Visitor, J.K. Simmons dials in one of the most hilarious C.I.A. chiefs in recent memory (even somewhat reminiscent of his indifferent Mac MacGuff in Juno), and Tilda Swinton and George Clooney face off again in an amusing "what if?" scenario that could have been tacked onto the end of Michael Clayton.
I'm zeroing in on the characters ahead of the story here because they're where the heart of Burn After Reading beats most loudly (that is, when it's not drowned out by Carter Burwell's driving score, which I can only assume he developed to make up for his muted tones in No Country for Old Men). Yes, the characters are where this movie lives, if only because the plot is, to be frank, kind of stupid. A U.S. agent and a couple of gym employees get caught up in the messy divorce of a disaffected ex-C.I.A. analyst? That's it?
Yeah, that's it alright, but if there's anything more idiotic than the story, it's the absurd manner in which these characters interact with each other, and while it's what provides consistent humor throughout the movie, it's ironically also the one place that criticism of the film can be directed. At times I felt the Coens were going for laughs a little too easily, relying only on the goofy mannerisms that the actors seemed to create on their own. Instead of the rapid-fire writing of the The Big Lebowski or the cultural wink-winks of Fargo, the Coens seemed to be content, for example, just filming Brad Pitt run wildly on a treadmill. In fact, I was almost expecting us to witness Pitt experience the stereotypical and completely unfunny bike accident that would send him flying over the handlebars onto the hood of a car. This didn't happen, of course, but my point (and it may be an unfair one) is that the spirit of some of the biggest laughs in Burn After Reading unfortunately reminded me of Step Brothers: idiots screaming obscenities at each other.
On the other hand, I would be selling the Coens short if I didn't also acknowledge the wry, almost subversive humor that pokes fun at U.S. intelligence agencies and, for that matter, generations of spy thrillers. While taking aim at a bureaucracy with the traditional "nobody knows that they're doing" ammo, the Coens still manage to dress up the comedy with timely references to internet dating and U.S.-Russian relations. Moreover, I do have to admit that the brothers have once again successfully "captured a culture": the Beltway, where everyone is suspicious and loyalties are traded like baseball cards. From what I know about living and working in Washington, D.C., Burn After Reading's portrayal of a cloaked, almost comically paranoid environment is not too far off the mark. For the sake of our national security, however, I sure hope the depictions of those internal C.I.A. meetings are.
The jocular tone, violent irony, and surehanded style of Burn After Reading will come as no surprise to those who have seen other comedies by the Coen brothers, but it will be interesting to see if the general moviegoing public, perhaps most familiar with No Country for Old Men, will give this one a chance (though the rabid Pitt and Clooney fans will surely help). It's not quite as immediately appealing as The Big Lebowski, but if nothing else it's proof that the brothers are still masters of their own uniquely distinctive form; the films of few other filmmakers these days are so immediately recognizable - or entertaining.
Grade:
Writing - 8
Acting - 10
Production - 9
Emotional Impact - 10
Music - 4
Social Significance - 3
Total: 44/50= 88% = B+
Grown men fighting like little children. The most symbolic movie of the year?
How is Judd Apatow not a recognizable name yet? We only ever hear, "From the guy who brought you...", as if it's not obvious enough when we see the cast. So, from the guy who "brought" us Anchorman, Kicking & Screaming, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard, Drillbit Taylor, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, and Pineapple Express, (breathe) comes Step Brothers.
There's little to discuss as relates to the plot of Step Brothers: Ferrell and Reilly are middle-aged children living at home with single parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins, respectively) who meet and get married. Now reluctant stepbrothers, the two men wrestle, hurl objects, and scream obscenities at each other for 95 minutes, stopping only to put on a different vintage 80's shirt at every opportunity.
A disclaimer, beforehand: 1.) My expectations for movies "brought to us" by Apatow was as low as ever, regardless of the specifics of his involvement; 2.) I didn't think John C. Reilly's full-blown commitment to comedy since 2005 was a good thing; and 3.) fresh off the heels of the terrible Semi-Pro, I still believed Will Ferrell could do no wrong.
All three of those facts remained true after Step Brothers. I thought Ferrell was hilarious, I thought Reilly was horrible, and I think the Apatow brand is a sham. Moreover, I'm concerned that the whole crew has become lazy, and that this is all we can expect going forward. The writing is uninspired (e.g., a repetitive sleepwalking gag) and there's way too much reliance on physical comedy. Also, it should say something when Jenkins steals every scene from the two leads. It would be one thing if Ferrell and Reilly were playing immature adults. We've seen that before and it can work. But here, they're actually playing immature children.
What happened to the wicked wit of Anchorman (Ferrell and Adam McKay wrote both movies, along with Talladega Nights)? Even though the plot of Anchorman was just as inane, it was more than saved by hilarious characters and well-developed jokes, and remains one of my favorite comedies. The formula in Step Brothers, unfortunately, seems to be one part character, two parts slapstick, three parts obscenities, a measure of potty humor and (Apatow's contribution I'm sure) a dash of male genitalia.
I know I'll sound like a snob, but is this really acceptable as the best work by America's comic geniuses? It's no wonder the funniest movie of the year so far has come from France.
Background: Actor Tom McCarthy's first film as a writer and director, The Station Agent, was a critical darling in 2003 and truly one of the most original American films to come along in the last 10 years. His second film, The Visitor, explores more conventional terrain albeit with mostly unfamiliar faces. You know Richard Jenkins as "that guy" from maybe 20 movies over the last two decades, and he was most recently in The Kingdom. Co-starring are Hiam Abbass (The Nativity Story, Munich) and relative newcomers Haaz Sleiman and Danai Jekesai Gurira. A piece of trivia: McCarthy developed the theme for The Visitor when he was presenting The Station Agent on a cultural exchange program in Beirut.
Synopsis : Walter Vale (Jenkins) is a widowed economics professor at a community college in Connecticut who finds joy in little in his life besides a glass of Cabernet. Tired of his teaching duties and stuck in a creative rut, he can hardly even motivate himself to go through the motions of his job, let alone actually do any work. When he's sent to present a paper at a conference at NYU, he's given a new lease on life. Upon discovering an undocumented immigrant couple living in his vacant NYC apartment, he finds himself oddly attached to them. Tarek (Sleiman), a Syrian, plays the djembe at local jazz clubs. His Senegalese girlfriend, Zainab (Gurira), makes and sells jewelry at an outdoor market. Walter is sympathetic to their plight and becomes somewhat of a father figure to them over the next 10 days. He watches Tarik play the djembe with equal parts envy and childlike awe; the drumming releases some innate emotion that he can't otherwise express, and he's soon drumming with Tarik at every opportunity. You can sense the third act of the film coming, but it's not simply Tarik's mistaken arrest and detainment. His mother, Mouna (Abbass), soon arrives from Michigan, vowing to remain there until he is released, despite the fact that neither she nor Zainab can visit him due to their legal status. Walter, in the meantime, has found his life's new calling in the mission to free Tarik before he is deported. His motive to help is genuine, but it's no doubt aided by his budding romance with Mouna. There aren't a lot of places the story can go from here, so I'll stop...
I Loved:
+ The drumming. As a former percussionist myself, I couldn't help my legs from going along with it.
+ Richard Jenkins, who almost certainly has his breakthrough performance here - 30 years into his career.
I Liked:
+ Danai Jekesai Gurira, who brought the film to another level with her excellent performance as Zainab. I am going insane trying to place her from another movie, but this is her first film credit. Maybe I actually know her? She graduated from Macalester College here in St. Paul. It's really early, but if her name came up in the Oscar buzz at year's end, it wouldn't bother me.
+ The somewhat abrupt ending. Initially I was irritated, but I soon accepted the fact that sometimes life just happens that way.
I Disliked:
- Tarek. He was a likable guy, but almost too much so. I wouldn't go so far as to call it manipulative on McCarthy's part, but it's pretty easy to elicit sympathy for a character who's perfect in every imaginable way.
I Hated:
- Nothing.
Grade:
Writing - 9
Acting - 10
Production - 8
Emotional Impact - 9
Music - 5
Significance - 5
Total: 46/50 = 92% = A-
Last Word: With only two films to his credit as a writer/director, Tom McCarthy has demonstrated an incredible ability to put square pegs into round holes. His characters are completely mismatched, but he creates incredibly intimate connections between them. While The Visitor doesn't necessarily achieve the grand vision McCarthy may have had for it as a referendum on America's treatment of immigrants, it still works splendidly as a glimpse into one man's rediscovery of his life. Richard Jenkins delivers a painfully honest performance, and early calls for an Oscar nomination are justified. His Walter Vale carries so much emotion that a simple smile appears to unload years of grief, yet Jenkins never exaggerates (like Haaz Sleiman) or missteps, which is vital since the film almost entirely depends on him. The film lags just a bit after Tarek's detainment, but the arrival of Mouna - while not seeming entirely natural - adds a romantic, comforting aspect to what would otherwise be a really depressing story. I think I prefer the quirks and the characters of The Station Agent, but I admire Tom McCarthy's ambition with The Visitor and I'm confident in calling him, at only 39 years old, one of the most promising American filmmakers of his generation.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
