Don’t go see the latest Coen brothers’ movie if you’re expecting another feel good comedy like O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Man Who Wasn’t There is considerably darker than anything the brothers have done for a while.
Set in the late 1940s, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a black sort of throwback to 1940s crime dramas like Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Like them, the focus is on ordinary people who commit a crime with consequences that spin out of control.
Billy Bob Thornton is remarkable as the incredibly deadpan barber Ed Crane. Ed is a man with no grand plan, just muddling his way through life. He’s not interested in sex or drinking, or even the fact that his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with his boss Big Dave (James Gandolfini).
Ed clues in that something is missing in his life and attempts to plug the hole with a big investment opportunity that comes his way. Only problem is, he needs money. And lots of it. So he blackmails Big Dave for the investment money and from then on, every action Ed takes buries him deeper in a hole.
In trying to seize what he sees as an opportunity to make his life better, Ed ultimately messes up his own, and everyone else’s.
Unlike Double Indemnity, you can’t completely revel in the greed and shamelessness of the characters’ actions because despite doing some bad things, none of the characters are really that evil or lewd.
This is a modern, more subtle version of the crime drama genre. We feel sorry for Ed, because it just seems like he just can’t catch a break.
With every plot twist, there’s a sense of the futility of his trying to change his life. But if you’re in the mood for a kind of existential tragedy with a little comic relief thrown in (because this is a Coen brothers film) this is definitely the movie to see.
