Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Richard Jenkins 15A cert, gen release, 95 min
Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen follow their gripping, Oscar- winning No Country for Old Men with a zany screwball comedy. They've incurred the wrath of critics who expect and demand something more substantial from the Coens every time.
The wailing in some critical quarters is reminiscent of the head-scratching mystification back when Woody Allen went in the opposite direction and started getting all serious. To quote that 19th-century Irish term used by Nicole Kidman in Far and Away, "Lighten up."
Burn After Reading is light, undemanding and timely escapist entertainment at a time when prophecies of doom and gloom proliferate. The Coens have a knack for finding off-kilter humour in the most unexpected places, even in their darkest thrillers, and this boisterous comedy has the air of a thoroughly entertaining house party, where the company is consistently engaging as one moves from one room to another.
The amusingly convoluted storyline involves John Malkovich as Osborne Cox, a boozy, pompous ex-CIA analyst whose tell-all memoir is stored on a computer disc he accidentally leaves in a Washington gym. Tilda Swinton plays his bossy, glacial doctor wife, who is having an affair with Treasury agent Harry Pfarrar (George Clooney), an inveterate adulterer married to a successful novelist.
The Coens' predilection for quirky character names is obvious with the introduction of Linda Litke (Frances McDormand), a middle-aged gym employee distracted by her online search for a man in her life and her preoccupation with receiving facial and physical reconstruction. Linda is oblivious to the longings harboured by the gym manager, Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins), a former Greek Orthodox priest who pines silently while she arranges dates over the internet. A peroxide-blond Brad Pitt plays Chad Feldheimer, Linda's dim-witted, gum-chewing, Gatorade-guzzling colleague who finds Osborne's lost disc.
The CIA chiefs don't come across as much brighter than Chad in a movie that gleefully lampoons portentous political thrillers from the opening frame onwards. The Coens also take a few pops at a softer genre target in clips from Coming Up Daisy, a non-existent romantic comedy starring Claire Danes and Dermot Mulroney.
Burn After Reading may seem like a souffle after the meaty drama of No Country for Old Men, but the Coens bring it to the screen with all the impeccable detail and visual style we have come to expect from them. They assemble a succession of precisely framed compositions, which are often shot from the unlikeliest of angles and rhythmically edited by the brothers under their collective pseudonym, Roderick Jaynes.
The casting is inspired down to the smallest parts. The chemistry between the stars sparkles as they portray clueless characters deluded in their smug or naive self- absorption and discovering all too late that they are out of their depth. It would be invidious to single out any of that perfectly attuned ensemble, although it has to be said that Pitt steals scene after scene in a delightfully goofy performance.
