Film critics who have been in the business a long time can become guilty of drinking their own bath water. They love certain directors (“auteurs”) and actors; particular those who have built a career out of making so-called interesting choices, preferably not always to box office acclaim.
Artists who have won the critics’ respect tend to get cut a little more slack. This is to be expected. Any serious critic must take a longer view of an artist’s work. (After all, a blogger who punches out one or two reviews can’t expect to be taken seriously.)
Art, like life, is about context. A single piece of work shouldn’t colour an entire career (although in some cases it can sum it up. See anything produced by Hirst, D).
On the other hand, critics often go easy on directors and actors who should know better. One saw it with the critics’ poster boy Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (an excellent review of which can be found here).
The latest example is the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading.
In BabbelOn’s opinion, the Coens have made some fine films; Fargo, The Big Lebowski and most recently No Country For Old Men.
Burn After Reading is their latest attempt at a screwball comedy. Their earlier (unfortunately not last) attempt was the aptly named Intolerable Cruelty. Aptly named for those who had to sit through it.
All the ingredients for a successful experience are in place here; the familiar actors (Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Brad Pitt), the clever plot turns, the smart dialogue. So why doesn’t it work?
For one thing, like Intolerable Cruelty, it’s a story about unpleasant, self-centred people being nasty to one another. This can work in a thriller (or a horror film if one would ever want to sit through such a thing) but comedy is tiresome unless the characters are interesting enough for one to care about.
Interesting, dimensional characters are born out of complexity. Complexity is built out of contradictions. No Country For Old Men’s Javier Bardem is a psychopath who believes in chance and always keeps his word. Now that is interesting.
Burn After Reading’s Clooney, Pitt etc are not complex; they are flat as paint. McDormand is a vain, scheming gym instructor. Pitt is her dumb co-worker. Clooney is a flaky federal marshal with a pants problem. John Malkovich is just angry.
However, the bigger problem, in BabbelOn’s humble opinion, is that the ”stars” are too big for their parts. George Clooney and Brad Pitt in particular have difficulty losing themselves in a role. The closest Clooney has come lately was in Michael Clayton, where he had to wear a suit and take orders from Sydney Pollack. He was believable and very good. In Burn After Reading he is annoyingly self aware.
Pitt just mugs and eats his way through everything. He’s like an underwear model with Tourette’s.
Frances McDormand is a great straight man. Unfortunately, here she is trying gags that are, well, trying. It sounds like she wrote her own dialogue.
Tilda Swinton, who won an Oscar for Michael Clayton and can act her way through most things, in Burn After Reading is possibly the nastiest character she will ever play. Her bitch/wife Mrs Malkovich makes Narnia’s White Queen look like Doris Day. But, again, what you see is what you get, a one-dimensional character with an arc that flies from A to A.
The best thing about the film is Richard Jenkins, who play it so straight he seems to be in the wrong film. Yet somehow he manages to let a glimmer of humanity shine through the schtick. Maybe he’s not big enough to write his own lines.
Where is the wit, the subtlety, the sub-text? Even plot-driven films need characters one can care about. Otherwise it’s like watching technicolor pinball.
But of course the critics loved it (4.5 stars from David Stratton).
BabbelOn wants his money back.
