It goes without saying thatJoel CoenandEthan Coenare among the greatest filmmakers of the last several decades, and it’s possible that, eventually, they’ll be remembered among the all-time greats. Few writers/directors are quite as unique as the Coens, and even fewer have managed to navigate between genres quite as well. The Coen brothers have touched nearly every genre imaginable; they’ve created gritty neo-noirs (Blood Simple, No Country For Old Men), outrageous capers (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski), broad comedies (The Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother, Where Are Thou?), commentaries on Jewish anxiety (Barton Fink, A Serious Man), westerns (True Grit,The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), and so much more.
2008’sBurn After Readingwas released between two of the biggest critical successes of the Coen brothers’ career; in 2007, they had won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay forNo Country For Old Men, and in 2009, they received subsequent Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nominations forA Serious Man. However, 2008’sBurn After Readingwas met with a more tepid response; viewers were taken aback by the wild CIA comedy that didn’t seem to go anywhere. The confusing dark comedy brought together George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Frances McDormand for an absurd adventure involving stolen government secrets; while it wasn’t acknowledged for its brilliance at the time,Burn After Readingis a masterful work of satire and among the most cunning films that the duo ever made together.
Socio-Political Satire
Burn After Readingis yet anotherCoen Brothers filmthat satirizes a powerful institution by revealing that its infrastructure is run by simplistic people with childish ambitions and a startling amount of incompetence. While they’ve tackled everything from organized religion to the legal system, the Coens usedBurn After Readingto examine the intelligence community and how callously information is traded and stolen. In the wake of real world developments about surveillance and the right for privacy, the story felt more relevant than ever. Additionally, the Coens do a great job at making the absurd seem casual, as some of the CIA-acquainted characters squabble over romantic struggles and classified operations in equal measure at a dinner party.
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The story revolves around the CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (Malkovich), who suffers from extreme anger issues and decides to quit his job. Cox feels like he’s contributed very little during his career, so he decides to write a memoir that contains classified information to be released at another date. Unfortunately, Cox’s wife Katie (Swinton) has downloaded his entire harddrive because she intends to divorce him; Katie has been secretly having an affair with the paranoid U.S. Marshall Harry Pfarrer (Clooney). Katie’s situation gets even worse when the disk falls into the hands of the dim-witted gym employees Linda Litzke (McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Pitt). It’s a film where every character is selfish, shallow, and worth mocking.
Offbeat Performances That Cast Against Type
The Coen brothers never fail to wrangle in a great cast for their films, and they often give performers a chance to act against type and try something different. McDormand has worked with the Coens since their directorial debutBlood Simple, and she often plays strong, confident women with a real sense of agency. However, Linda is a self-obsessed, unconfident daydreamer who thinks that she needs plastic surgery in order to have a successful romantic life. Despite the tired musings of her boss, Ted (played by Richard Jenkins), Linda has her heart set on radically changing her image; she’s too clueless to realize she’s putting everyone in danger, and that Ted secretly has feelings for her.
Pitt has given a number of comedic performances in the past, but he’s never done anything quite as bizarre as his role as Chad. Chad is an absolute goofball, who despite his kind-hearted nature manages to get everyone into deeper trouble. While there are certain perceptions that some audiences may have about a “workout bro” being such a central character, Chad isn’t toxic or attempting to impress anyone with his physique. He expresses a childlike excitement towards finding the disk and an eagerness to help, not realizing that he’s vastly in over his head. Simple moments like Chad dancing in his car are just hilarious.
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Clooney is best known for playing romantic leads, and while he gets to rely on his typical charisma inBurn After Reading, he’s saddled with a signature sense of perpetual anxiety. Harry is such a shameless womanizer that even though he’s constantly having affairs (he’s married, but continues to pursue both Katie and Linda), he’s constantly worried about being watched or discovered. The disappearance of the disk makes him even more neurotic, and Clooney has fun with the role when Harry’s obsessions get weirder and weirder.
Genuinely Morbid Dark Comedy
The Coens have always done a great job at balancing the heart and humor within their films; while there are moments of off-kilter violence played for comedic effects inRaising ArizonaandO Brother, Where Art Thou?,the films end with more explicitly sentimental elements. However,Burn After Readingremoves that sense of earnestness altogether for a film that’s just as violent and hopeless asNo Country For Old Men. One of the biggest shocks comes early on when a confused Harry accidentally shoots Chad; while it’s sad to see such a fun character go away, it’s such a major detour from what was expected that it instantly leaves the audience guessing, as no characters are safe.
The film really excels with its ending, as it gets to reflect on how meaningless the entire controversy was. While the intelligence community grows concerned that Linda will attempt to leverage her knowledge of Cox’s memoir for some high stakes access, it’s revealed that she wants nothing more than her precious plastic surgery. J.K. Simmons has a hilarious cameo as a bewildered CIA supervisor who is shocked to learn that no lessons were learned by the agency.
The subtle writing earned thepraise of Roger Ebert, who said in his review that “it’s funny, sometimes delightful, sometimes a little sad, with dialogue that sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realize all of these people are mad.” A retrospective review byThe New Republicreflected that “more than just a satire on espionage, the movie is scathing critique of modern America as a superficial, post-political society where cheating of all sorts comes all too easily.”
