Brotherly Like

Over the years, I've been involved in lots of conversations about people's favorite movies. And if I had to guess, the movie that seemed to come up most often near the top of friends' lists -- that I hadn't seen myself -- was O Brother, Where Art Thou? It was just hard for me to muster the interest with so many strikes against it.

First, it's a Coen Brothers movie. I don't generally think much of their films (even the ones widely thought to be excellent), and sometimes I really hate them. Second, it stars George Clooney. I don't hate him or anything; I just find him to give too similar performances in the movies he makes. Third, country music figures heavily into the story. Well, okay, a more "jugband" sort of sound than country, but it is in any case a style that holds little appeal for me.

But eventually, I got worn down. Finally, enough people told me how much they liked the movie that I said "alright, I'll give it a shot." I even went in assuming there was some chance I would actually like it. There's at least one Coen Brothers movie I really enjoyed (True Grit). Even starring as "George Clooney," George Clooney does sometimes make entertaining films (Ocean's Eleven). And country music... well, okay, I got nothing there. But the point is, I went in with as open a mind as I could muster.

I came out perhaps as well as could be expected. No, I didn't love the movie. But I didn't hate it either, even with all the strikes against it. I "liked it alright." There's plenty of snappy, swift dialogue in the movie. There's a fun, musical quality to the speech above and beyond the actual musical content of the film.

That musical content was actually pretty good too, though the voices they found to sing in place of the actors did not match at all. This was perhaps an intentional choice, though if it was meant to be a joke, I found it distracting, not funny.

George Clooney does manage to turn the dial of his performance probably about as far as he can turn it. There are still plenty of moments where "George Clooney" pokes through, but there are also times when an actual character seems to be there too. His onscreen cohorts, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson, both play good "id-jits," and there are some fun appearances by John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Stephen Root, and Michael Badalucco.

But from a story perspective, the film didn't hold together at all for me. I know that it's based on The Odyssey by Homer; never having read it, I don't know how close this adaptation is. But the result is a largely episodic tale that often loses its throughline. Indeed, you don't even learn what the throughline is until late in the movie, when it's finally revealed why the main character was driven to escape from his chain gang. In place of a solid single narrative, you get a section about recording a hit record, a section about getting mugged by a Bible salesman, a section about a Ku Klux Klan rally... it's all over the place.

All told, I'd rate the movie a C+. That's not a very high mark for me, though it is the same grade I gave the Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning film No Country for Old Men. So perhaps coming from me, you'd consider that a rave review.