This is the second DVD I found in a Litte Library, and I'm glad I did, because somehow -- how? -- it completely went under my radar. Think about all the great stars in this one -- John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, George Cloney, Frances McDormand -- how could this ensemble cast not make a banger of a film?
Well, it is a banger. Yes, it's a comedy, but it works because everyone plays it straight. All of the characters are "quirky," but somehow, they are all playing it straight. Not once does the film go for a laugh. It's not like, say, The Big Lebowski or Fargo. I mean, those are also movies that more or less play it straight, too, but the places to laugh are more obvious, and the quirky characters in those films cross some sort of "quirky/laugh line."
I have a feeling that some viewers think this movie is "second tier" Coen Brothers, because the laughs aren't as obvious. I actually don't hold that against it. No, I don't quite think it's a 5-star film, but even a film like The Big Lebowski -- one of my favorites -- isn't exactly a five-star film. What always bothers me about Lebowski is what bothers me about Brun After Reading -- no real sense of ending.
Throughout the movie, the characters, as my wife puts it, "parallel play." They all have reasons for doing what they're doing, but for the most part, we don't know much about their reasons. Linda (McDormand) might have the clearest reasons -- she wants money to pay for her cosmetic surgeries -- but even so, why is she willing to go to any lengths to get that money? There seems to be no line she won't cross.
Harry (Cloney) is a character that's less clearly defined. He has sex with just about any woman, it seems, and so he's able to "bridge the gap" between the different characters. But why does he sleep with everyone? We never really know. The only reason I can come up with is "because he can." What's funny is that his wife is a children's author, but he's making a contraption in the basement that you wouldn't think a children's author would use. Of course, people are people, and it turns out that if Harry is having sex with every woman he can, maybe his wife is doing the same thing with guys when she goes out on book tours.
This is a movie with a simple, somewhat ridiculous plot. The fun is just seeing all of these characters cook. Chad (Putt) is such a dork, but I love how committed and into the character Pitt is. Pitt was 45 when this film was made, but how old is Chad supposed to be? In his 20s? 30s? It's hard to tell. Whatever his age, you get the sense that either Chad isn't too bright, or he's the sort of dude who will always have a high school boy mentality.
What's to burn? I'm not sure. There is a disk with the start of Osburne Cox's memoirs (Malkovich) on it, but there's never actually anything burned or anything to burn. Maybe that's the whole point, though, as nothing of significance was actually at stake, but that didn't stop a lot of bad things from happening anyway...
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
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