So it was my pick for movie night, and my last selection, the neo-noir The Last Seduction had been a bust with my friend [who didn't find the main character funny, a requirement for enjoyment], and for some reason I found myself renting this, another neo-noir. I had seen this in the theater and liked it, and upon re-viewing, had the happy experience of discovering that it's even better than I remembered.
We open with these nice 3-D titles over a B&W image of a barber pole--the entire movie is B&W by the way, and packed with gorgeous photography by Roger Deakins. Billy Bob Thornton is Ed Crane, barber who ended up in his job because the owner is the brother of his wife. He says he's not really a barber [as a person], he just works there. All of this is delivered in a noir-type voice-over, as we see that Ed moves incredibly slowly, barely ever makes a facial expression, and rarely says anything. One day a guy comes in for a haircut, and talks about a business deal he came in town for that went sour: he was going to receive $10,000 investment to open a dry cleaning business. This is 1949, and dry cleaning is brand new, the wave of the future.
That night Ed thinks about it--his wife Doris, in the bath, asks him to shave her legs, which we'll come back to--and goes over to the guy, Creighton's, hotel room. He says he'll get the money. Creighton loosens his tie and winks at Ed, who asks if that was a pass. Creighton is gay! And it's a little refreshing, as he has no other characteristics we would otherwise associate with a gay person. Anyway, Ed says he'll get the money.
Earlier that night Ed and Doris have had James Gandolfini as Dave over for dinner, and Ed mentioned that he thinks Dave and Doris are having an affair. His plan to get the money is to send a note, seemingly from someone else, threatening to expose the affair. Dave, upset, confides in Ed that he's being blackmailed, but doesn't tell him the woman he's being adulterous with is Doris. He mentions that the news coming out would ruin him, as the department store he runs belongs to his wife's family--so both major male characters work in jobs they are beholden to their wives for. Dave thinks it's "the pansy" that sent the note, when Dave refused to give him the money--Dave was the prospect that Creighton had come into town to see. And by the way, Dave's a smart businessman and he thinks Creighton's proposal is a load of hooey.
SPOILERS > > >
Doris gets drunk and is passed out at home when Ed gets a call from Dave. He goes to the store late at night. Dave knows it's him, and asks repeatedly: "What kind of a man are you?" He also lets on that he found out it was Ed from Creighton--who he beat for the information. Dave is attacking Ed when, with a quick stab to the neck, Dave is dead. It's a little funny as Ed goes home, sits back in place and resumes the story he was telling when the phone rang earlier.
Surprise--DORIS is hauled off to jail for Dave's murder. Ed gets Doris' brother Frank to mortgage the barber shop to pay for Freddy Reidmenschneider, considered the best lawyer in the region for these kinds of cases. Freddy is played by Tony Shaloub in a flamboyant performance as this self-assured lawyer who talks incessantly and will listen to no one but himself. And also runs up huge bills at others' expense by eating everything in sight and staying at the best hotels. I suspect he was somewhat inspired by Hume Cronyn in the Lana Turner Postman Always Rings Twice, who comes in during the second half and also dominates the film with his self-assurance. Meanwhile, Ed is going over more and more to hear Rachel, the teenage daughter of a friend, play Beethoven. It soothes him and is the only thing he knows that seems beautiful and true.
Certain things start getting weird. Dave's wife comes over and tells Ed that she and Dave both witnessed an alien landing, and experiments were conducted on Dave. She's sure his murder has something to do with a government cover-up. He starts to think about becoming Rachel's manager, and it seems like he has feelings an adult shouldn't be having about a teenage girl. Doris hangs herself in prison before her trial, after learning that Ed knew of her affair and just never said anything. Rachel makes an unrealistic pass, and they have a huge car accident. Ed wakes in prison. They found Creighton at the bottom of a lake--Big Dave killed him--and Ed is blamed for it.
Ed gets Reidmenschneider to defend him, and he makes a big speech about how Ed "IS" modern man. Wait--subtext alert sounding! Then Frank punches Ed, causing a mistrial, and shouting again: "What kind of a man are you?" Ed gets a crappy lawyer for the mistrial and is sent to death row, where...
We find out that what we've been watching is the dramatization of Ed's story that he's been writing for a men's magazine that is paying him five cents a word--giving him good reason to extend and embellish. We see some men's magazines sitting on his desk, one about an alien landing, one about a married man discovering that he's a mad killer. So the point is we'll never know how much of what we just saw is true, and how much was made up or embellished, as Ed went through and added little bits inspired by the magazines he was reading. This also gives context to the entire movie as a neo-noir, as Ed is writing a pastiche of noir clichés from men's magazines, and the movie itself is a pastiche of clichés and well-worn conventions from noir films. So, it's genius. The problem is, it also kind of invalidates and diminishes the entire movie, because if what we saw was all just a pastiche, just a fantasy, then why should we care about it? It does explain many of the weirder turns the story starts to take in its last third, but it also makes you a bit of a chump for paying close attention to the film, as ultimately none of it mattered. This is too bad, as it can lead one to dismiss and forget much of the truly wonderful performances and photography of the bulk of the film, because ultimately they were all kind of a smokescreen.
< < < SPOILERS END
Nevertheless, really good and really worth watching. Who do the Coen brothers think they are, making a movie as slow, somber and meditative like this? They have a lot of nerve. This has interesting characters, nice observance of noir conventions [without feeling too artificial], good performances and really wonderful photography. It's just a little bit of a shame that the ending, while ideologically brilliant, kind of diminishes the whole 110 minutes that lead up to it. Still, a must see.
