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You are here: Home Leisure Arts & Culture Cinema: Burn After Reading and European Film Awards

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11/12/2008Cinema: Burn After Reading and European Film Awards

Picturenose’s James Drew forgives Joel and Ethan Coen for taking the gongs away from There Will Be Blood at the Oscars as he enjoys their latest, Burn After Reading, and presents the winners of the 6 December European Film Awards.

Burn After Reading

They have been with us from as far back as Blood Simple (1984) and, following their Oscar-winning epiphany with the overrated No Country for Old Men (2007) (which should never have taken Best Film and Best Director away from Paul Thomas Anderson’s sublime There Will Be Blood (2007)), Ethan and Joel Coen return with a largely good-natured romp - one with more than a few echoes of what is les freres Coen’s actual masterpiece, The Big Lebowski (1998).
 
Few directors blend themes as seamlessly as the Coens (here, for example, we have comedy/thriller of sorts/emotional screw-turning) nor, seemingly, does anyone have the same knack for tight, naturalistic, credible and frequently hilarious dialogue. It’s obviously for this reason that stars of the calibre of John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney are queuing up to appear in their films - hell, they’d do it for free, probably.
 
Burn After Reading (2008) © Focus Features
Following up on the earlier Lebowski reference, Burn After Reading most closely resembles its ancestor in its depiction of the consequences that a mere storm in a teacup may bring - John Malkovich is Osbourne Cox, a cynical CIA agent (is there any other kind, one wonders?) trapped in a loveless marriage to Katie (Tilda Swinton) and who, after storming out of his job, decides to attempt to write his memoirs.
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