The Man Who Wasn't There Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

The Man Who Wasn't There

The Coen brothers, one of the few director/producer teams that have assumed almost trademark status, are at it again, and with the Coens, we never can be sure what it is. This time out, with The Man Who Wasn't There, it is a fascinating black and white tribute to a long-gone style of film-making, brightened by the best performance Billy Bob Thornton has ever given. (For once, he doesn't act like Billy Bob Thornton.) For a leisurely couple of hours, which at times stretch a little thin, we return to the sculpted black and white images of the “black film” or film noir (scroll down to "Popcorn" if you aren't familiar with the term)—those giddy messes of pessimism and great lighting, booze and bawdiness (or at least the suggestion thereof), and always a grim, deterministic morality underlying the whole business. This is every frame a Coen flick, and nobody else could have pulled this off.

There is a lot going on, in this tale of small town barber Ed Crane (Thornton), a slow, simple man caught up in rapidly piling up complexity. He is stuck in a small town, stuck in a small barber shop, stuck in a meaningless marriage with Doris (Frances McDormand), who works for Dave (James Gandolfini), and—Ed suspects—has an affair with him as well. And, like the best of the film noir bunch, Ed smokes. And smokes. Well, it gives him something to do with his mouth.

It’s hard to talk about this film without giving away developments in the plot that you need to find out for yourself. Let’s just say that Doris goes to jail for…. Oh, well, you’ll find out, but meanwhile Ed scrapes up the money to hire a flamboyant defense lawyer (Tony Shalhoub, one of those actors whose names you can’t remember but whose wide range of small, significant roles you can’t forget). While many a shyster lawyer can get you by or through the thicket of the laws of the United States or at least of the State of California, no one can help you when you are facing the laws of fate.

We are in the territory of fate here. Ed is a sort of Everyman, someone who wants more than has been spooned up for him. For starters, he would like a life, a chance to be there (intentional homage to Chance the Gardener in Jerzy Kosinski’s novel Being There), to be somewhere, not just to smoke anywhere. And if murder is the only way he can get there…. Oh, well, you’ll find out.

This is not a film for everyone, in fact, perhaps, not for very many ones. But, if you love film, if you love the sheer possibility of the medium, then, this film’s for you. One of the main problems that I’ve found general audiences have with film critics is that audiences in general tend to judge a film one-dimensionally. If the story is good (a “thrill ride,” as so many movie ads proclaim nowadays) or if the special effects rock the house (literally, sometimes), then, it must be a rocking good film.

When I look at a film, and I don’t put on some sort of special critical glasses to do so, I look for the whole of the experience. Plot, o.k. (at least since Aristotle, critics have acknowledged the importance of plot), but character, texture, the wholeness of the film, and Joel and Ethan Coen deliver pretty whole-y films indeed. The film is the plot. Every lush, evocative black and white shot (even Billy Bob Thornton looks good in this light) is worth the time it takes to look at it, to absorb it. It is about style… but about so much more as well. So, keep your feet stylishly dry and your heart perhaps unstylishly full of noble thoughts.