Burn After Reading (2008)

A Return To Comedy, But At What Cost?

Burn After Reading is comparable to nothing else that the cinematic art has had to offer so far. I have went through the list of the movies I have seen and even though that list includes a lot of absurd and quirky comedies, there is nothing I can relate this latest flick from the Coen brothers to, save for Intolerable Cruelty and The Big Lebowski, which are their own films anyway.

This is a new understanding of slapstick satire that imitates not a single conventional element from the past, for which it should be celebrated. There is no way you can define it without using the term 'Coenesque' or 'Typical Coens' or any suitable varient of these, which is what many critics and bloggers out there seems to be doing as far as I could observe. The analysis of this two-person genre requires an in-depth look that I am not able to provide within the limits of this review, so you might consider having a look at the excellent Coen brothers retrospective in MovieZeal for that, which was run only a couple of months ago.

The first thing I can say about Burn After Reading is that it's a hard film to grasp. Why? Because its brilliance is profoundly obvious but so is its crude simplicity. After one and a half hour and a very abrupt, anticlimactic ending, we get the point but was that a point worth making? We chuckled - even laughed, occasionally - but did Burn After Reading really satisfy us as a comedy? We admired the characters, the nonsensical plot and how it's handled in all aspects as if it's the most serious espionage thriller that we've ever got to see; but where does that eventually lead us? We don't know. It might be of revolutionary importance or pathetic insignificance. How can one decide?

Not easily is my answer. Because after their gigantic critical success with No Country For Old Men, the sincere feeling of watching a Coen Brothers film dissolved into an uptight experience. Theirs is now a certified style that most people feel hesistant to criticise. Chances are it's us, as the audience, who failed to understand the deep hidden meanings or technical innovations rather than them failing to match the success of Fargo or The Big Lebowski. And after No Country For Old Men, it's hard to come to terms with these guys' intention to loosen up. It's hard to accept that this is not an important conference on a matter of extreme significance but merely a casual chat around the bar table.

It is what it is though, and anyone pretending that it's more is still under heavy influence of No Country For Old Men. This is a film that embraces all the trademarks of a typical Coen film and stops short of being anything more. Infused with eccentric characters, examplary dialogue, minimal yet delicate cinematography and a comedic attribute that is intelligently hidden under thick layers of serious faces, tragic moments and dominant grave tones in the soundtrack, the film could've been much more but it chooses to stay more casual. This does not excuse Burn After Reading and allow it to be perceived as something more than any other 'average' film, but its evident potential does.

The point where J. K. Simmons asks the other CIA guy to "report back to him when it makes sense" is the most important scene by a long shot; and I can list three reasons for that: 1) It's the funniest scene, 2) It's a single sentence and a gesture that manages to summarize the whole point of the film and 3) It's the point where it becomes obvious that without all that recapping of events done by the CIA officer, making sense of or laughing at all the things we have seen up until that point would've been much more difficult. This is probably the film's biggest flaw, for if you imagine it without that single scene, Burn After Reading wouldn't be half as funny or coherent as it is; and that suggests a serious amount of wasted time and opportunities.

6/10