Coen's Burn After Reading Written for the Actors
A Bizarre Satire about the CIA, Gym Employees, and Blackmail
Sep 22, 2008
Burn After Reading is the Coen Brother’s first film of their 20-plus years in the industry to open at number one at the box office. One of the biggest draws to Burn After Reading is definitely the star-packed cast, with Brad Pitt standing out above the rest. As the consummate fitness buff, he plays to perfection the part of the trainer with nary a quick thought in his pretty, blond-tipped head. But the story, a dark comedy with complications galore, will also lure Coen fans to the theaters.
A Star-Studded Ensemble
In an interview at the Toronto Film Festival, Joel talked about how “most of the parts in this were being written for the people who played them. That’s often the way it works with us. We know an actor and want to work with them.” Except for Tilda Swinton’s role, all of the main characters in Burn After Reading were written with specific actors in mind.
Nowhere does this casting seem more apparent than with John Malkovich. As the explosive and alcoholic ex-CIA analyst, Malkovich was born for this role. While his screen time is small, virtually the entire film’s plot revolves around him, and the trouble begins with him.
Everything Spins Absurdly Out of Control
The film begins with an analyst getting pulled off a job because he has - another agent blurts out - a drinking problem. the analyst throws a tantrum at this revelation, quits his job, and decides - to his wife’s disgust - that he will write his memoirs.
The analyst's wife, a coldhearted adulteress, decides on the advice of her divorce lawyer to save all of her husband’s financial information on a disc. Unfortunately, the disc is lost at a Hard Bodies Gym, in which the dimwitted employees, played by Pitt and Frances MacDormand, find it, believing it to be secret government code that they can use to blackmail the ex-CIA analyst.
Everything goes horribly awry. MacDormand's character is so determined to get money for the disc that she takes it to the Russian Embassy. Meanwhile, the CIA plays the narrator at a distance, watching everything unfold, but unable to understand why it's happening, or how it began.
Success Hasn’t Changed Them... They’re Too Old
If anyone was afraid that after the success of No Country for Old Men that the Coens would trade in their quirky film choices for Hollywood-type options, they needn’t have worried. According to Ethan Coen, success hasn’t changed anything. “No, no, no,” he says. “It’s a weird thing. It might have if it had been, like, on our second movie, but we’re just frankly, we’re just kind of set in our ways. ... We’re just old.”
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