More than any other filmmaking group who sprung from the indie scene, the Coen Brothers are the hardest to pin down, pigeonhole, or even categorize, lest they leave you in the dust with their succeeding project.They drop a BARTON FINK on you, throwing you through a cinematic window, then come back five years later with a FARGO, their most accessible pure storytelling that they have ever put to celluloid.
Through this decade, their last several films following the widely-liked O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU have been considered light disposable fare after an acclaimed hearty 1990s.So, predictably enough, they unpredictably come back with an all-star madcap comedy so difficult to explain, even a seasoned CIA operative character in the film has trouble making sense of any of it.Which is not to say that the complexities and glorified cameos amongst the principal players in BURN AFTER READING are not thoroughly enjoyable, that is if one goes with the wacky Coen Brothers journey through what boils down to a film about middle-age crises.
Without listing the many popular actors or the intricate plot details, suffice it to say that BURN AFTER READING winds through an interweaving group of 40 and 50-somethings who all face a certain unhappiness and unfulfilled life path, and, triggered by a simple event at the outset of the film - the dismissal (or quitting) of one character from his longtime job - many plotlines come apart and join together through the rapidly paced albeit short running time of the film.
Though FARGO was a far superior film in terms of setting, tone, pacing, and character study, BURN AFTER READING most closely evokes that 1996 film in the Coen Brothers canon.With Carter Burwell's Philip Glass-esque score, the hauntingly empty pallid WashingtonDC locales, and the ensemble group's equal lack of emotional color, this film approximates what Paul Thomas Anderson accomplished in films such as MAGNOLIA.Where Anderson is interested in the intense drama and the intimate relationships forged among his carefully crafted characters, the Coens, at least in BURN AFTER READING, are less interested in those cinematic qualities and more interested in the quirkiness and odd juxtapositions that their story's multitude of situations present throughout the movie.
Simply shot and staged, BURN AFTER READING's strength is not so much in its filmmaking prowess, but in how aloof the Coens can stretch their sensibilities and how daring they can get in their choices of what to put down on film.Considering the star power that their more recent films have attracted, they have indeed continued to surprise and create as offbeat films as possible given their unique position in the industry.In many ways, they still function as independent filmmakers, ones who now paint with seemingly any type of canvas they so wish.
By Scott Essman
