Review: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

* * *
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Tim Blake Nelson, Liam Neeson, Zoe Kazan, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson

Ever since Netflix began acquiring and developing its own library of films the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has, with the exception of Netflix's documentaries, resisted recognizing Netflix pictures as legitimate, award worthy content. This changed last year when Mudbound broke through to get 4 nominations and one imagines that this year, with the release of Roma, already so thoroughly lauded with awards from critics, and with filmmakers like the Coen brothers turning to the platform with their latest, the notion that films released through Netflix aren't "real" movies will be obliterated. The Coen's latest, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a great challenge to the idea that Netflix removes the "cinema" from films, as it is a thoroughly cinematic piece of work even when viewed on a small screen thanks to the sumptuous compositions of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who previously lensed the Coen's Inside Lleweyn Davis. Telling a series of tales set in the old west, Buster Scruggs hearkens back a time when the Western was as big as all outdoors while being told in the wry, modern voice of the Coens.

Review: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

* * *
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Channing Tatum, Alden Ehrenreich, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton

Good news and bad news. The good news is that Hail, Caesar!, which finds the Coen brothers in a loosey goosey kind of mood, is a treat for movie nerds, it's such an affectionately crafted paean to 1950s Hollywood and the moment when the old Hollywood started to fall away and make room for the new. The bad news is that, once you see it, you'll find yourself longing for full length versions of the Coen brothers' take on the Esther Williams swim and song movie, the singing cowboy B-movie, the swords and sandals biblical epic, and the Gene Kelly song and dance movie. Hail, Caesar is more a series of fun vignettes than anything, but when it's this entertaining it hardly matters that the plot is all dangling threads held together by the vague notion that the protagonist is experiencing a dark night of the soul.

Review: Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

* * *
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones

In the grand pantheon of Coen brothers movies, Intolerable Cruelty, their one foray into romantic comedy, often gets dismissed as being among the least of their works. To be sure, it lacks the staying power and importance of their very best work, but I've always had a certain degree of affection for it. It's a silly movie, but it also has an old school battle of the sexes vibe and I can easily imagine it, with a few tweaks for period sensibility, as a comedy from Hollywood's golden age, maybe with Cary Grant in the George Clooney role and Lauren Bacall in the Catherine Zeta-Jones role. Intolerable Cruelty is arguably the fluffiest movie the Coens have made to date, but it's a lot of fun in its lightness and inconsequentiality.

Review: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

* * * *
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Oscar Isaac

Midway through Inside Llewyn Davis someone threatens to put a curse on the eponymous folk musician. By the time the film winds its way to its final scene (I won't call it the "ending" due to the film's circular structure), you have to wonder if maybe Llewyn was experiencing a bit of deja vu because it sure seems like he's already been cursed, even if only by his own caustic personality. In their melancholy new film, the Coen brothers follow their protagonist from one desperate situation to another, the victim of both circumstances beyond his control and circumstances of his own making. He's not a "hero," exactly, but it's difficult not to feel some sympathy for him as the reverberations of his actions come back to smack him in the face over and over again, with no hint that it's going to let up anytime soon.

Netflix Recommends... Miller's Crossing (1990)

* * * 1/2
Director: Joel Coen
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Albert Finney

Third time's the charm, I guess. This time Nextflix's Top 10 recommendations only included 3 films, one of which I'd already seen and enjoyed (The Men Who Stare At Goats), one I'd never heard of (Freedomland), and one that's been on my list of films to see for a while, but which I hadn't gotten to yet (Miller's Crossing). So I chose Miller's Crossing, which I've somehow managed to never see despite being a huge Coen brothers fan, and it proved to be a much more satisfactory choice than my previous Netflix Recommends selections. A lyrical gangster movie/period piece with touches of humor mixed in with darkness, Miller's Crossing is everything you expect from a Coen brothers drama.

The Best Picture Countdown #80: No Country For Old Men (2007)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin

No Country For Old Men is the best Coen brothers’ film since Fargo and, until A Serious Man and its tornado ending came along, probably their most divisive. You either love this movie or you hate it, the ending filling you with awe or leaving you scratching your head in frustration. I remember when I saw this in the theatre and the audience’s reaction to the ending varied between stunned silence and audible displeasure. This isn’t the kind of movie that works for the audience; it’s the kind of movie that makes the audience work for it.

The film opens with a monologue by Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) which is reminiscent of the speech by Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) at the end of Fargo. The two characters are similar in a lot of ways – they’re both smart, level headed individuals with a keen eye for putting details together, and both have well-meaning deputies who are always this close to putting things together themselves, but ultimately require a little extra push. Like Marge, Ed has difficulty understanding the senselessness of what he sees. Javier Bardem is the only actor from the film who earned an Oscar nomination (he, in fact, won 2007’s Best Supporting Actor prize), but Jones’ performance provides the force which steadies the story and keeps it grounded. Jones did receive a nomination that year for a different film which I suspect happened because people didn’t know how to categorize his performance here: it is clear to me that he is the film’s real protagonist, its central character, but since his screen time is more limited than that of co-stars Bardem and Josh Brolin, it might be difficult for some to consider him as the lead. This is only one of the many challenges that the film puts forward.

The story itself can be easily summarized: In the middle of nowhere Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug transaction gone wrong and finds the money that about a half a dozen people have been killed over. After taking it home he does something fundamentally stupid, which results in the people who want that money knowing who has it. The person who wants the money most is Anton Chigurh (Bardem), one of the cruellest and most relentless villains ever committed to film. Llewelyn goes on the run, with Chigurh coming every moment closer, while Sheriff Bell tries to put the pieces together to save Llewelyn and catch the killer. The relationship of Bell to Chigurh is the heart of the film. Chigurh is a brutal killer who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. Wandering into the crime scenes Chigurh leaves behind, Bell is simply at a loss to explain how a human being can be like this. He comes to believe that it is a generational thing, a sign that society is simply going awry. However, his brother points out to him that people have always done harm to others senselessly, that it isn’t just a sign of the times. This is why the ending is so meaningful and appropriate – Bell is the old man for whom there is no country. The world to which he has always belonged (law enforcement) no longer makes sense to him and, leaving it, he realizes that he doesn’t know how to relate to the rest of the world either. The dream he describes at the end is the essence of what the rest of his life is going to be like – there’s nothing for him to do now but stay on the trail and catch up with his father in the hereafter.

No Country For Old Men looks like a crime thriller but I think it’s really a western, a response to those westerns from the 60s and 70s that centred on the concept of the “dying west,” the wild west that is tamed by the coming of the railroads and society, leaving no room for the hero outlaws. Here the trope is reversed and instead we have a hero who is part of civilized society and is pushed out and set adrift by the breakdown of society into violence and chaos. Chigurgh is the character representative of that chaos, a killer who believes that the lives he takes aren’t taken as much by his hand as they are by the hand of fate. Twice he leaves the fate of potential victims to a coin toss. "This coin got here the same way I did," he explains. His last victim refuses to accept that and tries to force him to accept responsibility by refusing to call the toss. But, this isn't a man who can be reasoned with. This is a man who seems to think that if you happen to cross paths with him, then you were probably meant to die. And even though it will be by his hand, it is also ultimately out of his hands. And what is that kind of thinking if not chaotic?

This is an excellent film, one that only seems richer and deeper on subsequent viewings. The Coen brothers, who have been a little hit and miss with their output over the last decade, are at the top of their form and the entire cast is pitch perfect, creating something that is sure to stand the test of time, a film that will always be worth revisiting.

Review: True Grit (2010)

* * * *
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon

True grit. They say that's what Rooster Cogburn's got and that's why Mattie Ross wants to hire him. Not that she really needs him, since she's got grit enough for two. I went into True Grit (not having read the book or seen the John Wayne version) thinking it would be all about Cogburn and was pleasantly surprised to find that it has a lot more to do Mattie herself, a spirited and thoroughly engaging heroine. A lot of great characters graced the big screen in 2010 and Mattie is definitely one of my favourites (and reminds me quite a bit of another 2010 favourite, Winter's Bone's Ree Dolly).

True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), who is determined to bring the man who murdered her father to justice. The man she's after is Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) and the man she hires to track him down is Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a US Marshal. Cogburn is reluctant to take the assignment, especially once he learns that Mattie intends to accompany him, but ultimately agrees (though he does attempt to leave her behind). The two are joined by Taxas Ranger LeBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is after Chaney for the murder of senator, but it's an uneasy partnership in all respects. Cogburn and LeBoeuf don't get along and both assume that Mattie will be more of a nuissance than a help. Eventually LeBoeuf splits, but since he's still intent on finding Chaney (and getting a handsome reward for bringing him back to Texas), the three will cross paths again later.

Cogburn and Mattie proceed further into Choctaw territory without the Ranger, eventually coming to an isolated shack where they find a pair of outlaws who have information on Chaney, specifically that he's fallen in with "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper). Shortly after this revelation, both the outlaws end up dead (one stabs the other, prompting Cogburn to shoot him) and Cogburn and Mattie lay in wait for Pepper to return. Unfortunately, LeBoeuf shows up first and almost ends up dead after entering into an ill-advised stand off with the gang. Cogburn comes to his rescue but Pepper and Chaney get away and soon the still unstable alliance between Cogburn, Mattie and LeBoeuf disintegrates. Things just get worse from there as Mattie falls into Chaney's hands, making it necessary for the frequently drunk Cogburn to pull it together enough to get her back to safety.

I had pretty high hopes for True Grit simply because of the Coens and the cast they'd assembled and, I have to say, this film totally exceeded my expectations. In many ways it's very unlike the Coens' other outings (which leads me to believe that it's a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel) and yet it still retains that certain Coen charm. This is a very lovingly rendered film and gorgeously photographed by frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins. It's hard to believe that despite several nominations Deakins has never won a Oscar, but maybe this is his year. That opening shot of snow falling on the body of Mattie's father, the scene illuminated by the light from an open door, is particularly, achingly beautiful and so are the series of shots that make up Cogburn's desperate attempt to save Mattie's life. The setting may be the rough and tumble wild west, but True Grit is definitely one of the prettiest looking movies of the season.

The acting, of course, is also stellar. Bridges is pitch perfect as Cogburn, his surliness a nice balance to Steinfeld's pluckiness, and Damon makes for a nice third to round out the core group as the loquacious and too earnest by half LeBoeuf. Brolin's role is fairly small but his performance is memorable as the outlaw who turns out to be more goofy than terrifying (early in the film LeBoeuf insists that Chaney is a wiley one, prompting Mattie to declare that she always found him rather dumb. Gotta give it to Mattie on this one). However, the film well and truly belongs to Steinfeld, who demonstrates a skill well beyond her years. Her performance is absolutely delightful (I especially enjoyed Mattie's naive but frequent belief that outlaws can be swayed by her promise help them get good legal advice) and makes Mattie a force to be reckoned with. True grit? She's got it.

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Review: A Serious Man (2009)

* * * 1/2
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg

Around the time that Burn After Reading came out, I read a commentary that stated that all the Coen brothers’ films were variations on the heist movie. Not having seen all of the Coens’ films, I don’t know whether that thesis holds together completely, but it certainly seems true enough of the films that I have seen. In Fargo, No Country For Old Men, and O Brother Where Art Thou?, it’s money that’s been stolen; in Raising Arizona it’s a baby; in Burn After Reading, it’s a disc; in The Big Lebowski it’s a very special rug. In A Serious Man, the purloined object (good fortune) is much more elusive, and so is its thief.

The story takes place in the 1960s, somewhere in the Minnesota suburbs. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a physics professor with a wife and two children whose entire life is about to come crashing down around him. His wife is in love with another man, “a serious man” named Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed) who hugs Larry and wants him to know that they’re going to get through this. Larry moves out of the house and into the Jolly Roger motel with his brother Arthur (Richard Kind), who spends most of his time draining fluid from a boil on the back of his neck. His children don’t seem to care that he’s gone – all that matters to his daughter is that Arthur is now out of the house which means the bathroom will no longer be monopolized and she can wash her hair; all that matters to his son is that the TV reception is off and F Troop is fuzzy. A Korean student is trying to blackmail him for a passing grade. His neighbors seem to be trying to expand their property into his. A representative of the Columbia Record Club is dogging him over a membership he never signed on for. The Rabbi lauded for his wisdom won’t see him. Every time Larry thinks that things can’t get worse, they do.

Larry is not a bad man and when he says that he "didn't do anything," it's true. His greatest crime, it appears, is passivity. So how to explain his recent misfortunes? The film begins with a prologue in which a Polish couple is visited by a man that the wife swears is a dybbuk. She declares that they’ve been cursed and perhaps that’s what has happened to Larry. Maybe Arthur – whose arrival in the Gopnik household seems to have portended the end – is the dybbuk, or maybe Larry and Arthur are descendants of that couple and the curse has been extended down to them. Then again, perhaps the explanation is that sometimes shit just happens. You're just going along, thinking you've got it together, having averted what you thought would be your greatest crisis and then bam! Tornado.

A Serious Man is the most lowkey of all then Coen brothers films I've seen and feels at times less cinematic than novelistic. It quietly creeps into Larry's life and then sits back to watch it being dismantled, studying him, layer after layer, and then stepping back again. In certain respects, the film feels as passive as Larry himself - there's no great narrative push in one direction or another, which works because it adds to the sense that things are just happening to Larry beyond all control. Stuhlbarg handles all of this well as Larry becomes increasingly baffled by the events in his life then slowly melts into acceptance and starts to come to terms with things. He carries the movie easily and never lets Larry slip into being pathetic or whiny. He's just a good man to whom several bad things are happening all at once. There is a tendency with fictional characters to value them for their quirks, but it's Larry's pure ordinariness that makes him (and Stuhlbarg's performance) special.

I liked this movie a lot, but I didn't love it. Like Burn After Reading last year, I thought it was funny and well crafted but not particularly resonant. Maybe it's because so much of the story hinges on the seeming randomness of the universe, but I found it difficult to engage with this movie in a really meaningful way. Objectively I can see it's particular genius, and I can understand why other people love it, but it ultimately left me a little bit cold.

LAMBScore:

Review: Burn After Reading (2008)

* * *
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton

Burn After Reading is a farcical look at paranoia, national security, and spy games that manages to be equal parts funny and sad, shallow and deep. In it characters stumble into a web of political intrigue that no one really comprehends, mostly because there’s essentially nothing to comprehend because they only think that they’re in the middle of something. I don’t know that it’s entirely successful as a film, but I liked it just enough to recommend it.

At the centre of the maelstrom that will become this plot is Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who is let go from his position as an analyst at the CIA and decides to use his newfound free time to write his memoirs, which his wife Katie (played by a wonderfully flinty Tilda Swinton) thinks would be of little appeal to readers anywhere. Katie is carrying on an affair with Harry (George Clooney), who is also married, and planning to divorce Osbourne. As part of that effort, she copies financial information from his computer to a disc (also, inadvertently, copying parts of the memoir) and that disc ends up being lost at a gym where it is found by Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand). Linda needs money for a series of plastic surgeries she’s decided she wants – nay, needs - and Chad comes up with the idea to ransom the disc.

Things get increasingly convoluted. When Osbourne refuses to pay for the return of the disc, Linda decides to try to sell it to the Russians (why the Russians? you might ask and you would be joined by pretty much everyone other than Linda). Meanwhile, Harry – who Linda meets over the internet and begins dating - becomes increasingly paranoid as he realizes that he’s being followed, and the CIA, having been tipped off by the Russian embassy about the attempted sale of “information,” is baffled by the various goings-on they witness through subsequent surveillance (“They all seem to be sleeping together,” a perplexed agent informs his supervisor).

The set-up for the story is a bit slow – I’d go so far as to say that the first half-hour plods along – but once the ball gets rolling, the plot unwinds itself at an almost dizzying speed. To be honest, I didn’t really start to like the movie until Pitt showed up and proceeded to be awesome during every moment he was on-screen. He has so many great scenes, from his initial phone conversation with Osbourne where he adopts a raspy voice to extort him (“I thought you might be worried... about the security... of your shit.”), to his face-to-face meeting with Osbourne where he keeps squinting his eyes in an attempt to appear tough. This last scene ends with Osbourne illuminating all the reasons why Chad is stupid including the fact that he came to the meeting on a bike, and all Chad gets out of it is that Osbourne has mistaken his bike for a Schwinn. Pitt is genius at being a moron.

The comedy that is Chad is offset by a few more serious elements: Linda’s self-esteem issues which manifest themselves in both her desire for plastic surgery and her desperation for the approval of the men she meets over the internet (she cites sense of humour as an important factor and yet when one dates fails to pass the test, she sleeps with him anyway), and her boss’ (Richard Jenkins) infatuation with her which leads him to involve himself in an increasingly volatile situation despite his reservations. But for all that, this is a comedy and one that, in its brilliant final exchange, effectively summarizes the insanity of the last decade.

LAMB Movie of the Month: The Big Lebowski (1998)

* * *
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore

A kidnapping gone awry, a bungled ransom drop, a cast of peculiar characters, and appearances by Peter Stormare and Steve Buscemi – sound familiar? Not quite. The Big Lebowski is the polar opposite of Fargo, as light as the other is dark, as funny as the other is tragic. With a keen eye for absurdity, writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen deliver a film that is truly one of a kind.

The Big Lebowski begins with Jeff Lebowski, known to all as The Dude (Jeff Bridges) being mistaken for a millionaire also named Lebowski, whose wife is in debt to a pornographer. Two guys show up at Lebowski’s abode, rough him up, and ruin a rug before realizing that they’ve got the wrong guy. After relating his tale to his friend, Walt (John Goodman), The Dude is convinced to go to the Big Lebowski and ask for compensation for the rug, which he receives by simply taking one of the rugs in Lebowski’s mansion. Shortly after their meeting, Mrs. Lebowski (Tara Reid) is kidnapped (or perhaps not) and The Dude is recruited to act as a courier to deliver the ransom. The money is lost when The Dude’s car is stolen, a toe is sent to Lebowski as a means of encouraging him to deliver the money, and people keep showing up at The Dude’s demanding answers. The plot of the film is kind of nonsensical and a little meandering, which would bother me were it not for the fact that I think the story is being told this way intentionally. I mean, if a stoner was trying to relate this story to you, including the subplots involving him getting Lebowski’s daughter, Maude (Julianne Moore) pregnant, and his bowling team’s quest to win the championship, you wouldn’t expect it to be entirely cohesive nor would you expect all the threads to tie up nicely.

There are a lot of quirky characters in the film – as there tend to be in all the Coens’ comedies – and a lot of truly bizarre moments (and I mean that in the best possible way). Walt is a Vietnam vet with anger issues who constantly steps in to help The Dude, but only manages to make things much, much worse each and every time; Maude is an artist with a penchant for flying over her canvas, flicking her brushes Jackson Pollack-style; the alleged kidnappers are a trio of German nihilists who don’t quite seem to understand why they shouldn’t get the ransom even if they don’t have Mrs. Lebowski – The Dude, himself, is actually the most normal of the bunch.

As The Dude, Bridges delivers a really well-realized characterization of a guy who always seems like he’s this close to expressing some great thought, but fails because his brain and his mouth are out of step with each other and because his ideas, once thought, drift away and can never again be recovered. Bridges isn’t an actor I’ve ever gone out of my way to see, but I’ve always found that movies he’s in are better for the fact that he’s in them. He’s a very naturalistic actor and slips so completely and easily into his roles, which is maybe why he’s never really been given as much credit as he deserves. The presence of Bridges, more than anything else, really grounds the film and keeps it from going too far over the top.

100 Days, 100 Movies: Fargo (1996)

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare

At some point in their lives, the Coen brothers must have know a really cool cop. How else to explain that they managed to depict two of the very best police officers ever captured on screen – here with Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and in No Country For Old Men with Ed Tom Bell. In this twisted tale of kidnapping, greed and murder, where everything that can go wrong does, Marge is the only character who isn’t severely out of her depth. By mixing the brutality of the crime with the pleasant ordinariness of Marge’s everyday life, the Coens created a film that defies any easy classification. It’s clearly a drama. And it’s clearly a comedy. It is most certainly a masterpiece.

The film begins by telling us that this is a true story, which is and isn’t true. It’s actually bits and pieces of several true stories combined into one narrative. “If an audience believes that something’s based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept,” Joel Coen has said by way of explaining the “true story” foreword. And it’s true because when you watch it, you can’t help but think that some of the things that go on in the film are so outrageous that they have to be true. The infamous wood chipper scene, for example, is based on the actual murder of a woman from Connecticut. So, knowing that truth is stranger than fiction, it’s easy to believe that car dealer Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) could come up with a plot to rid himself of his debts by having his wife kidnapped so that her wealthy father will pay the ransom. It’s also believable that the father-in-law will push Jerry aside to take matters into his own hands, that the two hired kidnappers (Steve Buschemi as Carl and Peter Stormare as Gaear) will prove to be less than reliable (not to mention compatible), and that the story will end in tragedy for all.

In and of itself, the basic plot of a kidnapping gone awry would be enough for a compelling story, but Fargo goes beyond simply being “good” and becomes “great” through the addition of pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson, a character who possesses something which remarkably few film characters are allowed (or, at least, allowed to use): a brain. Her ability to observe and correctly assess situations in order to make the best decision sets her apart from the other characters, many of whom make snap decisions while in a panic – Jerry, Carl – or who simply fail to properly think things through – again, Jerry, and Marge’s deputy Lou, who provides the set-up for Marge’s best line, “I don’t agree with you 100 per cent on your police work, there, Lou.” Aside from her intelligence, Marge also provides a welcome counterbalance to the Lundegaards’ tragedy through events which take place in her own life apart from the investigation. The scenes between Marge and her husband (John Carroll Church), and Marge and her high school classmate Mike (Steve Park), have nothing to do with the murder plot, but tell us volumes about Marge herself and make her all the more easy to identify with.

The Coens walk a fine line, balancing the elements of comedy and drama in this story and often pitting the two against each other in the same scene. In the scene where Marge meets with Mike, for example, there’s an awkwardness between them which is funny, but there’s also something a little off, a little sad about Mike, whom Marge handles with as much delicacy as possible. In the kidnapping scene itself there is the faint hint of slapstick as Mrs. Lundegaard comes running out of her hiding spot in the bathtub, gets caught in the shower curtain and takes a tumble, but the scene is pulled back into its darker undertones by the presence of Gaear. And any scene involving Jerry features a healthy dose of both the comedic and the dramatic.

If nothing else, Fargo is a perfect example of how big a role casting plays in the success of a movie. Frances McDormand as the sincere and steady Marge, William H. Macy as the nervous Jerry whose self-doubt creeps just beneath all his words, Steve Buscemi as the excitable Carl, and Peter Stormare as the quietly menacing and cavalierly cruel Gaear – all of these actors are irreplaceable in their roles, so completely do they encapsulate these characters. However, not content to let it rest on great performances – or great writing – the Coens also bring considerable technical skill to it. My favourite shot in the film is of Jerry walking to his car across a deserted, snow-covered parking lot. The vastness of the white, empty space around him seems to perfectly encapsulate his state of mind as he finds himself pushed further and further away from his dream of finally making something of himself.

When all is said and done, the film ends not with the resolution to the investigation, but beyond that on a quiet note between Marge and her husband. He’s just learned that his painting will be featured on a stamp, downplaying the achievement in the face of Marge’s support. “It’s just a three cent stamp… People don’t much use the three cent,” he insists. “Of course they do. Whenever they raise postage people need the little stamps,” Marge replies. It’s Marge’s ability to come home from her own major triumph but still be able to recognize and celebrate that of her husband that makes her so very endearing, and it’s the film’s ability to take us to the darkest of places but still end on this quiet, charming note, that makes it so very watchable.

Review: No Country For Old Men

This is easily the best Coen brothers film since Fargo. This is a bloody, suspenseful epic with an ending that will have people talking – you’ll either love it or hate it; it’s nature leaves little room to wander in between. In the audience with whom I saw this, reaction to the ending varied between silence and audible displeasure. It isn’t a movie that’s going to please everyone, but those who like it will really like it.

No Country For Old Men opens with a monologue by Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) which is reminiscent of the speech by Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) at the end of Fargo. The character of Ed is like Marge in a lot of ways – they’re both smart, level headed individuals with a keen eye for putting details together, and both have well-meaning deputies who are always this close to putting things together themselves, but ultimately require a little extra push. Like Marge, Ed has difficulty understanding the senselessness of what he sees. A lot has been made of the performance by Javier Bardem, whom I have little doubt will receive an Oscar nomination for this film. I hope that the Academy also recognizes Jones’ work in this film, because he’s the force that steadies the story and keeps it grounded.

The story itself can be easily summarized: In the middle of nowhere Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug transaction gone wrong and finds the money that about a half a dozen people have been killed over. After taking it home, he does something fundamentally stupid, which results in the people who want that money knowing who has it. The person who wants the money most is Anton Chigurh (Bardem), one of the cruellest and most relentless villains ever committed to film. Llewelyn goes on the run, with Chigurh coming every moment closer, while Sheriff Bell tries to put the pieces together to save Llewelyn and catch the killer. The relationship of Bell to Chigurh is the heart of the film. Chigurh is a brutal killer who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. Wandering into the crime scenes Chigurh leaves behind, Bell is simply at a loss to explain how a human being can be like this. He comes to believe that it is a generational thing, that society is simply going awry. However, his brother points out to him that people have always done harm to others senselessly – it isn’t just a sign of the times. This is why the ending is appropriate – Bell is the old man for whom there is no country. The world to which he has always belonged (law enforcement) no longer makes sense to him and, leaving it, he realizes that he doesn’t know how to relate to the rest of the world either. The dream he describes at the end is the essence of what the rest of his life is going to be like – there’s nothing for him to do now but stay on the trail and catch up with his father in the hereafter.

This is a film that’s being described as a crime thriller, but I think it has a lot in common with the westerns that came out in the 60s and 70s that centre on the idea of the “dying west,” the wild west that’s tamed by the coming of railroads and society, and which leaves no room for the hero – only here the trope is reversed. Instead we get a hero who is part of civilized society and is pushed out and set adrift by the breakdown of that society into violence and chaos. Chigurh is the character representative of that chaos, a killer who believes that the lives he takes aren't taken as much by his hand as they are by the hand of fate. Twice he leaves the fate of potential victims to a coin toss. "This coin got here the same way I did," he explains. His last victim refuses to accept that and tries to force him to accept responsibility by refusing to call the toss. But, this isn't a man who can be reasoned with. This is a man who seems to think that if you happen to cross paths with him, then you were probably meant to die. And even though it will be by his hand, it is also ultimately out of his hands. And what is that kind of thinking if not chaotic?

This is an excellent film. The Coen brothers, who have been a little hit and miss with their output over the last decade, are at the top of their form and the entire cast is pitch perfect. The performance by Bardem is likely to be the thing people talk most about, but hopefully the quiet, solid performance by Jones will get some recognition, too.