Tonight’s movie: The Man Who Wasn’t There

Face it, Joel and Ethan Coen make weird movies. Maybe it’s their last name missing the letter h that gave them a complex as children. Still, The Man Who Wasn’t There is the latest in a line of good but strange movies–O Brother Where Art Though?, Fargo, Hudsucker Proxy, Barton Fink, and Raising Arizona. That last one made me think they were great filmmakers 14 years ago and only exposed the tip of their weirdness. I enjoyed this movie, but you have to be in the mood for something out of the Hollywood mainline if you see it. Just one example: this film was shot in color and then transformed into black and white.

I have to give Billy Bob Thornton props for his acting in this film. He plays the title character, I suppose, and his emotional absence throughout the movie is what gives rise to that title. He has an odd, amphibious, almost nerveless presence, never moving off a slow, stiff keel. Jon Polito (Homocide) and James Gandolfini (Sopranos) play bookends, one a “pansy”, the other a big man who is shown to be something else entirely. Frances McDormand, a constant in Coen films, plays Thornton’s wife with a surprising sensuality. Scarlett Johansson plays a teenage piano player who almost figures as a Lolita in the second half but never quite gets there, which is not to take away from her performance since I can’t imagine the Coens wanting such an easily categorized performance.