Movie Review - Burn After Reading

Let's talk about a wickedly funny film. No spoilers below, the plot summary can be gleaned mostly from the trailer or other plot summaries or film reviews online. An insightful to-the-point spoiler of the film can be found here. I was giggling all the way to the Metro from the Arclight after viewing this one.

"And what did we learn here? I guess we learned not to do it again," the CIA director (J.K. Simmons) says at the end of the film. Ironically, the CIA is minimally involved in the film, serving only as the catalyst for Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) to sit in his Georgetown townhome, drink, and dictate his memoirs (pronounced in the French style). His coldly British pediatrician wife (Tilda Swinton) is shacking up with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), who let's say is married with a roving eye. Pfarrer ends up meeting Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) through an internet dating site, who is motivated to find a large pile of cash to surgically remodel her body, and has employed her coworker Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) to help her score her windfall.

Got all that? Enter Mrs. Cox's divorce lawyer's assistant who misplaces a CD copy of Mr. Cox's memoirs and financial data at the gym where Litzke and Feldheimer work.

The plot thickens, and morbid silliness ensues. The movie strolls along until it gets very dark very fast, and then the CIA tidily takes care of all the messy loose ends.

Visually, Brad Pitt is the funniest on camera. If he wasn't such a huge name and/or image, he would melt into his role. His meeting with Osborne Cox is one of the funniest scenes in the film, solely because of the way he plays his lines. Brilliant acting.

Coming in at number 2 is a three-way tie between Malkovich, Clooney, and McDormand, although I would have to say Clooney's character is the best developed. His character's actions bring paranoia-in-action to a whole new level. I could probably discuss for hours bits of that character and his actions, not to mention his all-too-human quirks (penchant for running, interest in wood flooring, lying about food allergies).

There are no true heroes or villains in Life, just a bunch of people in a mess. For everyone uninvolved, that mess can be really, really funny. Sometimes we get what we want, but most of the time we don't. Sometimes we're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of the time, we blow a situation completely out of proportion by overestimating our own importance to the rest of the world.