Joel & Ethan Cohen
Burn After Reading

THE REVIEW

The Coen brothers are an institution in contemporary cinema, and they know it well. Each of their films is eagerly awaited by critics and invariably triumphs at the box office, captivating an audience hungry for quality cinema. Indeed, one can say anything about the Coens except that they aren’t absolute professionals when it comes to homage, their ability to make us laugh and sting with their dark humor, their meticulous direction combined with a respectable cast capable of enhancing almost always inspired and enjoyable scripts. Once again, I leave the cinema satisfied. Maybe not as much as when I saw "Fargo", "The Big Lebowski", and even the latest "No Country for Old Men", but still pleased with their new work.

The reasons lie in the fact that the film has great rhythm and, with a deliberately absurd story (which primarily aims to ridicule films focused on espionage themes), manages to glue the viewer to their seat, thanks also to a very concise overall length. As the brief scenes intensify and the immense puzzle is pieced together, one must ask where the Coen brothers are taking us. The answer is apparently one: nowhere, end, and credits.
But amid this comic and grotesque spy story, there is also a search for love, which unites a large part of the characters who, in their way, seek Hollywood-style couple happiness through the sad pages of the web. There is the fear of losing love and the hope of truly knowing the person you have decided to live with because the axe of divorce is just around the corner. That “grow up, it happens to everyone sooner or later” has the taste of a very bitter laugh.

And beyond this, there’s the obsessive struggle against the advancing time; surgery, kilometers of running to burn fat and stay beautiful and able to have sex as if it were an illness. All this and more is captured with razor-sharp dark humor and shots that, as usual, stop at the details, the gazes (a Coen fixation), and the quirks of the individual protagonists.  
In short, a film as chaotic as few others without a true protagonist, but many real-life situations exaggerated to make the whole thing absurd. Absurd like the CD that starts it all off and leads to the deaths of 3 people. The beefy dimwit (Brad Pitt) wins the contest against the affable philanderer George Clooney, perfectly portraying the absolute emptiness of a brain in perpetual stand-by with gazes like tumbleweeds rolling in the desert. Malkovich plunges headfirst into the portrayal of a man about to explode with frustration after being fired and dealing with the inconceivable blackmail from an excellent McDormand, ready to do anything to look beautiful again. Even ending up at the Russian embassy 15 years after the end of the Cold War.

A medley with many ingredients masterfully cooked and served. Good, but still a medley.      

3 and a half