You are Going to Burn After Reading This!

Rating: A-
I know. I’m a genius at coming up with titles for these things, no need to compliment me, unless you want to… This 2008 film by the Coen Brothers is brilliant, which probably doesn’t need to be said because just about anything that Joel and Ethan put their hands on turns to gilded platinum awesomeness. I hadn’t seen this film until a few days ago when my fiancé said that we really needed to put it at the top of the queue on Netflix. Like almost every other human being in the world I had heard of it upon its initial release but for some reason at that point in my life I wasn’t really feeling like the Coen Brothers were exactly my thing, it may have been the Tarantino binge I was on.

One thing that I was excited for was to see Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, and John Malkovich all in the same film. One thing I noticed while watching this movie was that if Pitt’s character, Chad Feldheimer, were to meet with Pitt’s character from Fight Club, Tyler Durden, he would knocked out within the first two spoken words. The good news is; he would be smiling the entire time. I could not believe just how funny Pitt could be until I saw this film. He truly does amazingly well at playing such an insanely inane person. He’s even got that glazed-over look that tells you that there is absolutely nothing going on in that head of his. I have to add that when Brad Pitt is dancing while running on the tread mill I had to pause the movie I was laughing so hard. I’m laughing just thinking about it. Each actor does such an amazing job in this film it’s almost worth watching just to get an idea about what good acting is; whether it’s about how to show anger like Malkovich or how to be a giant bitch like Swinton. (Disclaimer: I am not saying that Tilda Swinton is a bitch, but her character certainly is). I cannot say enough about the acting in this movie, although it does make you see Clooney as a bit of a douche, but McDormand, who seems to be in almost every Coen Brothers film is hilarious as well. There are other actors who I should give praise to but if I were to mention anyone else I wouldn’t get to what I really want to talk about with this film.

The basic plot of the film is extremely confusing and would be nearly impossible for me to explain here in simple terms like I always try to do. Let’s just say that there is a lot of sleeping around (Clooney and Swinton, which is both hilarious to hear and mostly involves Clooney), a CIA agent (Malkovich) gets kicked out of the Agency and his house, and a moron (McDormand) needs plastic surgery. Trust me, it may be confusing to explain but it is hysterical and completely makes sense if you watch everything in its intended order.

The film is really about levels and what happens when someone tries to move between those levels and even gets kicked completely out of those levels. Now, you may be wondering why I’m not saying “social classes” or “hierarchy”, this is because of the importance of the house in which a lot of the film takes place. I’m not going to give away what happens in this film but I will tell you that there are four levels that we know of; the basement, the ground floor, the second floor, and a mysterious third floor that we never get a glimpse of. Because this is a review and not an analysis of the film, I won’t go any farther than that, but when you watch this film you will certainly understand what I’m getting at with this.

Now there are some other things that I feel need to be mentioned. In many ways, the Coen Brothers always have a way of making their films feel like they are taking real life and just slightly altering it. The Coens are really like scientists of the film industry and love to experiment with everyday people; which is why Frances McDormand is such an asset to this team of filmmakers. There are as with many films some things that just aren’t quite right or slightly annoying like the way John Malkovich pronounces French words or the way he says “memoirs”. (I’m not sure if that’s a French word or not…) I find this funny because if you see early films of his, he sounds a lot like Christopher Walken which is always hilarious, especially in films like The Glass Menagerie.

This is an extremely smart and hilarious film and I definitely recommend seeing it and if you’ve already seen it once, go watch it again. I have spoken.