It's beautifully shot in black and white, with film noir dripping onto every frame throughout as the Coen Brothers nail the style and genre of a darkly unsettling crime drama. It's headed up by Billy Bob Thornton (Fargo, Bad Santa, Bad Santa 2, A Simple Plan) playing Ed Crane, married to Doris, depicted by Frances McDormand (Fargo, Burn After Reading, The French Dispatch). He's a chain-smoking barber, working Second Chair for her brother Frank's firm in a small shop in Santa Rosa in 1949.
She works in retail and is having an affair with her boss, Big Dave Brewster, played by James Gandolfini (The Sopranos, The Mexican, Zero Dark Thirty). She's up for promotion in the mix, the suggestion being that she's sleeping her way to it. Ed is a very quiet, thoughtful man, doesn't say much and during this film, and in good noir fashion, most of what he says is to the audience via the character narrating thickly over the story. It works really well and adds to the atmosphere.
Ed's got an eye out for an opportunity and one comes along in the shape of Creighton Tolliver, played by Jon Polito (Miller's Crossing, The Crow), looking for a sucker to invest in his plan to introduce Dry Cleaning en masse to the country. Ed wants in, but needs $10,000 which he doesn't have. He and Doris live a simple life in a small ordinary house, so he needs to find a way to get it. He decides that they best way is to blackmail Doris' boss, anonymously. Frank pays up, Ed hands over the cash, Tolliver, inevitably disappears!
Big Dave calls Ed over to the office one night after a party where he and Doris are back at home, her passed out on the bed, blind drunk. He takes her keys and heads over to see Big Dave, who reveals that he now knows it was Ed who blackmailed him. He attacks Ed and in the scuffle, Big Dave dies. And Doris gets arrested! So she's now in clink and only Ed knows the truth - so what should he do?
Family friend Walter and father of the young piano-playing Birdy, played by Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story, Scoop, Lost in Translation) recommends a big-shot lawyer who is going to cost, but Ed signs up anyway. He's Freddie, played by Tony Shalhoub (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Monk, Addams Family Values), and proceeds to call the tune, stamping on anyone in his way in order to win the case and get Doris out of her fix. Hope you're keeping up at the back!
The Coen Brothers are not losing the audience in all of this though, complicated as the plot may sound, as they present and handle it so beautifully and with structure. The script is super as well and supporting music, thoughtful, headed up by Birdy's oft' tinkering of the ivories with Beethoven's Sonatas. I won't give anything more of the story away as from here things get deeper, darker, tragic and more twisty!
The cinematography, as we might expect, is simply stunning. It's a feast for the eyes, with every frame almost standing out for itself to be made into a noir poster. The use of black and white, the lighting, the shadows, the expressions on the faces - it's a multi-layered character study as well as atmospheric joy - and pretty much everyone in the story has a richness and interest to theirs. It's peppered with humour as well, dark as it may be!
Billy Bob Thornton steals pretty much every scene as he commands the screen with the ease we know he has as an actor. France McDormand is also terrific along with all those aforementioned characters depicted by the rest of the cast. The film really is a delight to watch and I'm glad I still have my DVD of it! I just checked online and it seems to be available to stream via Amazon Prime in the UK. Highly recommended.
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