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‘You too can be a spy…’
Latest Coen brothers comedy targets the secret wars of life after 40
By Alex Rewey
Characteristic of a summer rife with cinematic mismarketing, not long into the film it becomes very apparent that “Burn After Reading” is less about actual espionage and more about the insecurities and paranoia that build up over time in middle ages of stale careers and cold marriages.
As it turns out, the spygame isn’t all tuxedos and martinis, nor shootouts and car chases. Well, okay, maybe some shootouts and car chases; at least, that’s the way Joel and Ethan Coen see things. In their world, the real danger, deception, and intelligence game lies not in the political arena, but in the bedrooms and offices of your average restless Washington D.C. mid-life crisis.
The characteristically intense John Malkovich plays alcoholic CIA analyst Osborne Cox who, upon subject of his sudden but justified demotion to domestic op babysitter, quits the agency in hopes of writing his memoirs, much to the chagrin of his hardnosed wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) who now finds herself supporting him. Unknown to Cox, Katie is secretly having an affair with fitness obsessed and sex addicted US Marshall Harry Pfarrer, played with virtually no restraint or inhibition by George Clooney.
Meanwhile, when two unassuming D.C. gym employees, the newly body and age conscious and fellow Pfarrer mistress Linda Litzke (Francis McDormand), and vapid himbo Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) comes across the disk containing Cox’s memoirs, they see an opportunity to capitalize (Litzke for pricey plastic surgery, Feldheimer presumably for the hell of it) on its potentially sensitive national secrets by blackmailing him.
In what are easily some of the film’s best scenes, overseeing the ensuing amateur espionage melee are the “real” spies in the form of two nameless upper mid-level CIA bureaucrats (David Rasche and J.K. Simmons), who paint the agency as less of an all knowing illuminati organization than apathetic janitors more apt toward sweeping things under the rug than sifting through secrets. The Coens’ intelligence branch is far from a science, more of an ironically uniformed guessing game with few rules, regulations, standard operating procedure, or scruples for that matter.
Characteristic of a summer rife with cinematic mismarketing, not long into the film it becomes very apparent that “Burn After Reading” is less about actual espionage and more about the insecurities and paranoia that build up over time in middle ages of stale careers and cold marriages.
To this extent, the truly impressive ensemble cast delivers some wonderfully comic performances. Pitt’s blissfully vacant Feldheimer comes as a refreshingly farcical departure from his typically weighty roles. Swinton and Malkovich, though surprisingly underutilized, interject a proper amount of unflinching sternness and aggression toward the bumbling nature of their fellow leads.
Unsurprisingly, the film’s standout performance comes from Clooney, whose voraciously womanizing Pfarrer comes off as quirkily energetic and deranged as his stint in the Coen’s 2000 comedy “O Brother Where Art Thou?” while also being wholly charming and realistic.
McDormand’s Litzke doesn’t stray far from her now perfected take on the humorously unapologetic stubbornness, practicality, and audacity of the archetypal Coen woman. Think a single version of “Fargo’s” Marge Gunderson with an East Coast image complex.
After the Oscar winning “No Country for Old Men” arguably helped redefine the American cinematic epic, it’s truly remarkable how casual and subtly confident “Burn After Reading” comes across, despite containing more A-listers than your average humanitarian benefit.
Those hoping for an action fueled spy comedy are likely to be disappointed. Yet at the same time, the film is definitely not for the squeamish or easily offended. One of the film’s undeniable strengths is its ability to raucously uproot its subdued tone with well timed shocks of intense violence and vulgarity. These scenes might ordinarily distract if helmed by less experienced filmmakers. However, once again the Coens have flawlessly weaved their natural inclination towards comic absurdity with their equal penchant for sometimes darkly consequential everyday believability.
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