Burn After Reading (2008)

Tagline:
Intelligence is relative.

Wide Release Date:
September 12, 2008

Directed by:
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Written by:
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Produced by:
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Starring:
George Clooney
Frances McDormand
John Malkovich
Tilda Swinton
Richard Jenkins
Brad Pitt

PREGAME THOUGHTS

I saw this movie in the theater! It’s the only Coen brothers movie I had ever seen at the time since Raising Arizona, and in the last fifteen years I’ve seen exactly two more! Those brothers sure have made a profound impact on my life!

Not knowing what to expect going in, I liked this movie a lot. There’s also a certain two seconds involving Brad Pitt and George Clooney that’s burned in my brain forever, and for that I’m forever indebted to the Coens. Thank you, sirs.

THE 500(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The plot is all sorts of twisty and turny and, in the end, it all amounts to nothing.

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA agent who quits his job after getting demoted. He’s trying to write his memoirs. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), a doctor, is having an affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a U.S. Marshal.

You wanna be John Malkovich? I’ve got your John Malkovich right here buddy!

Katie’s sends copies of Osbourne’s financial records — accidentally including his memoirs — to her divorce lawyer. The lawyer’s assistant copies the files to a CD, which she accidentally leaves on the locker room floor of a gym that employs personal trainers Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Now, Linda, you see, is trying to afford her extravagant plastic surgery endeavors. When Linda finds the disc and discovers what she thinks are very sensitive CIA files and documents, she and Chad jump at the opportunity to return the disc for compensation.

After attempts to get money from the irate Osbourne Cox prove fruitless, Linda and Chad turn the disc over to the Russian embassy with hopes that they’ll get money for their information. They happen to talk to a spy for the CIA.

Since Osbourne’s all sorts of unhinged, Katie changes the locks on the house and gives keys to Harry. Harry begins cheating on Katie with Linda, whom he meets through online dating.

Linda and Chad promise the Russian embassy more government information, so Chad stakes out the Cox household until the coast is clear to steal more files from Osbourne’s computer. While sneaking around, Harry shows up and takes a shower while Chad hides in the closet. In the movie’s best single second, Harry discovers Chad in the closet and shoots him in the fucking face point-blank. Since Chad doesn’t have any identification on him, Harry assumes he’s a CIA agent. He becomes increasingly paranoid when he appears to be followed by an unknown assailant, who turns to to be his own wife’s divorce lawyer. Harry looks to Linda for support, who is also distressed about Chad’s sudden disappearance.

Something fun happens in this scene less than one second later! I promise!

Linda, believing that the Russians have abducted Chad, returns to the embassy for confrontation. It was pointless, and she is told that the disc contained nothing but garbage. Linda convinces the manager of her gym, the smitten Ted (Richard Jenkins), to sneak into the Cox residence to steal more files from Osbourne’s computer. Ring a bell? It doesn’t work. Osbourne pops into the house to retrieve some of his belongings and discovers Ted. Thinking that Ted is his wife’s affair partner, he kills him with a hatchet.

Meanwhile, after another meetup with Linda in the park, Harry learns the address where Chad was staking out before his disappearance. This freaks the fuck out of Harry, who flees the country thinking that Linda is another CIA agent.

All this information is relayed to Osbourne Cox’s former director, J.K. Simmons, who is perplexed by the pointlessness of everything that happened in the movie. He learns that Linda requested compensation to keep quiet about literally nothing, which the director agrees to out of exasperation and everyone moves on.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

Burn After Reading is better than I remember, and I loved it the first time around. I would have thought knowing the general structure of the story and remembering some basics of the plot threads would diminish the enjoyment, but the opposite happened! I got to much more appreciate nearly everyone in their roles. Such a perfectly cast movie, I can’t even decide who I liked best. Clooney’s great. Malkovich’s great. McDormand’s great. Pitt’s great. J.K. Simmons is fucking great. Richard Jenkins? Meh. Tilda Swinton? Meh.

You wanna be Frances McDormand? I’ve got your Frances McDormand right here, buddy!

The beauty of the movie is twofold. There’s the first time through, where you don’t know where anything is going. It’s not going anywhere for a while, but you just know that there’s going to be a huge payoff that ties everything together at the end! Then the end comes suddenly without the huge payoff! Then you’re like, wtf. Then you think about it and realize that everything does tie together. It all ties together beautifully! Everything that everyone does in the movie is a pointless misunderstanding of a situation caused by someone else in the movie.

The second time through — as is the case with this particular viewing that I’m writing about now — you know what’s going to happen. You spend less time focused on the payoff and more time focused on how these people are comically bumbling their way through matters that they are in no way equipped to handle properly. Linda thinks she can blackmail the CIA into a payout and she indirectly kills two co-workers who agree to help. Harry spends the whole movie deeply paranoid. Osbourne spends most of his scenes hollerin’. It’s a work of art, is what it is.

I think, overall, the storytelling and they everything weaves into each other — with everything ultimate pointless — is simply brilliant. It’s the kind of story I’d like to write some day.

TOPIC 2 — Writing a Story

Burn After Reading has the kind of story I’d like to write some day! I’m trying to write a book and it’s slow-going, but the concept revolves around about 40 characters who go about their day. It’s not an ordinary day. Some characters interact with multiple characters as the day goes on, and I’d like to create a story that takes advantage of this kind of intricate weaving of character interaction without being too dense and hard to follow. This sounds impossible, right? I’ve roughed out about three chapters and nobody in the story has really even talked to anyone yet!

This movie only has six or seven characters and I’m sure the Coens had to spend a lot of time at the drawing board trying to see how everything could fit together. I think that’s the difference between people who like Burn After Reading and people who don’t. The former appreciates the nimble storytelling. The latter are frustrated because nothing mattered.

But hey, I’m not going to psychoanalyze the two different types of Burn After Reading viewers! It’s just that the latter are wrong!

Pictured: The two different types of Burn After Reading viewers.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

According to costume designer Mary Zophres, even cheap suits look good on Brad Pitt. Thus, for the scene where his character Chad wears a cheap suit, she dressed Pitt in a suit with a purposefully bad and ill-fitting cut and a horrid-looking wool tie.
Okay, so you’re Brad Pitt. That don’t impress me much (oh oh ohh-ohh).

Tilda Swinton modeled her character’s hairdo after Edna Krabappel’s from The Simpsons (1989).
John Malkovich modeled his character’s after Homer.

“Wink.”

It was George Clooney’s idea that his character wear a gold chain, thinking it would make him look ordinary and a bit old-fashioned.
Not one person watched Burn After Reading and mused upon George Clooney’s ordinary, old-fashioned gold chain. They mostly mused upon his handmade dildo chair.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Oh hell yeah. You get a great, but pointless story and everyone’s on top of their acting game.

Hey, I forgot. I was going to muse upon the significance of the movie title. Perhaps on one level it means to literally destroy classified documents, i.e. relevant to Osbourne’s disc. Perhaps on another level the audience is burned after finishing the movie! Perhaps on a third level I’m an idiot and I need to stop writing. Goodbye, everybody!