Burn After Reading – Deep Dive
What did we learn?
Warning – Spoilers Ahead!
Released in the year following the critically acclaimed No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading was a jarring return to the Coen brothers famously absurdist style of filmmaking. And I just can’t emphasise enough how absurd this movie is.
The plot revolves around what is essentially nothing – the actions of characters who themselves are entirely unable to accept that what’s happening to them is completely random. Clooney’s Harry assumes that he’s being followed by the feds. McDormand and Pitt insist that they’ve stumbled across state secrets. It’s their refusal to recognise coincidence and their desperation to find meaning that drives this threadbare plot forward. Strip it all down, and Burn After Reading is essentially about the following:
A man loses his job.
Two gym employees believe that they’ve found CIA secrets.
George Clooney is a sex addict.
Of course, it’s not that simple, because these fantastically deranged and stupid characters turn everything up to a hilarious eleven. However, as funny as Burn After Reading is, I’ve always felt it to be a deeply sad movie underneath the surface.
When you look at the characters on an individual level, you realise that everyone is incredibly desperate.
Frances McDormand’s Linda Litzke has always made me especially sad. Her deep insecurities and the extreme lengths she’ll go to in order to afford cosmetic surgeries have always made me uneasy, and it was no different on my recent rewatch. She equates physical change with emotional fulfilment, believing that if she can just "fix" her body, she’ll be happy. Her delusion is, of course, played for laughs, but there’s definitely something deeply tragic about her complete lack of self-worth.
Then there’s Ted, Linda’s weary manager at Hardbodies, played with deep sincerity by Richard Jenkins. His desperation to impress or protect Linda, who barely bats him an eyelid, ultimately gets him killed. Not to worry, though, as he does manage to sneak in the best line of the film in his final moments:
“I’m not here representing Hardbodies.”
Gets me every single time.
As I said, sadness permeates this film, and it lingers beyond just the characters. The story is littered with people living disappointing, droll lives. Osborne Cox loses his job and his marriage, Linda Litzke is hopelessly lonely and insecure, and Clooney’s Harry Pfarrer is a sex-addicted adulterer going through a midlife crisis of unhappiness and paranoia (seriously, how many miles can a man run?).
The only person who seems to be even remotely happy is Pitt’s Chad Feldheimer, but that’s probably because he’s too dim to understand emotion. He’s upbeat, energetic, and completely clueless. Probably why the Coens decided to kill him off. It’s a real shock, seeing such a big star in Brad Pitt murdered so abruptly around the halfway mark. It’s also perhaps the funniest scene of the film, for the face he pulls alone.
To pick the funniest moments of Burn After Reading would be a nightmare. It’s crammed full of quotable dialogue, ludicrous scenes and hilarious performances that make you cackle on the first, fifth, or tenth watch. It’s also, perhaps, the only film I’ve ever seen that openly admits that it was a complete waste of its own time.
As J.K. Simmons and David Rasche hilariously summarise the plot, we too realise that it was ultimately a load of nonsense. Lives ruined, relationships destroyed, and people murdered – over nothing. It’s a fantastic subversion. As viewers, we get pulled in, and we start to believe that there must be a larger plot unfolding, but there isn’t. It’s just a group of sad, bored, middle-aged people trying to inject some drama and mystery into their otherwise bland lives.
As a young adult, this actually terrifies me. The thought of leading a life so dull and directionless that a lost CD feels like an exciting opportunity makes me feel queasy. Will I have anything interesting going on, or will I end up like Linda or Ted? At least make me like Chad, blissfully unaware of the truth.
Not worth worrying about just yet. Luckily, if that day ever comes, I’ll still have gems like Burn After Reading to rewatch. And that’s something.