The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, James Gandolfini, Michael Badalucco, Jon Polito, Tony Shalhoub, Scarlet Johansson.
Directed by Joel Coen.
Rated R.
Grade: A
"... and maybe there I can tell her all the things there are no words for here."
The Man Who Wasn't There is about a man who has become convninced that he is invisible. In his family affairs, he has become a figurehead. He and his wife (Frances McDormand) haven't "performed the sex act" in many years. On the street, people walk by him without so much as a glance. When someone talks, they talk at him, not to him. Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is, for all practical purposes, a ghost.
He is, of course, not content with this situation. The problem is that he so rarely voices any sort of protest, that as far as everyone else is concerned, he is perfectly happy in his own quiet, withdrawn way. But when an opportunity comes along, in the form of a sweaty, bald businessman (Jon Polito) who needs financing to open the world's first dry-cleaning store (this is the 1940's, mind), he decides to take it. He has nothing to lose. Of course, he doesn't have the $10,000 for this entrepeneur -- neither his job as a barber, nor his wife's job as a department store manager are nearly that lucrative -- but he knows where he can get it. You see, he knows that his wife has been cheating on him with her boss Big Dave (James Gandolfini), the husband of the store heir. Since Big Dave's career is completely at the emrcy of his slightly nutty spouse, he decides to anonymously blackmail him for the money. And then things get really complicated.
The Coen Brothers' stamp is all over this one, with an eclectic, as-offbeat-as-possible mood permeating the film to its core. And yet the hipper-than-thou snarkiness is missing; the tone is never derisive and we don't feel like we are expected to laugh at these characters. Ed Crane inspires not pity, but genuine sympathy; his plight, I think, is familiar to all of us in our own ways. Sometimes I feel like I am a ghost.
The movie is in black and white. It is the most breathtakingly beautiful cinematography of the year; perhaps one of the most gorgeous uses of monochrome I have ever seen (though the fact that I saw a flawless print may have contributed to that; most of the black and white movies I've watched haven't looked nearly this good). It is intended to be in the style of a film noir, and while the visual representation is pitch-perfect, the film itself is more profound than any traditional film noir could hope to be.
The ending, a sort of quiet punch in the gut, becomes even more poignant and shocking when you realize that it is the only logical conclusion, and the only character resolution that wouldn't feel cheap or emotionally contrived. The utter lack of sentimentality lends what is an impossibly implausible situation credibility; the film doesn't aim for the tear ducts, but winds up there anyway.
Billy Bob Thornton has made a career of playing societal outcasts, and this is his richest role to date. His character has repressed every basic human emotion, but watch Thornton's eyes in key scenes for something stirring beneath the surface. His is one of the year's subtlest performances. In sharp contrast to this personification of understatement is James Gandolfini, who is now officially one of my favorite character actors. While Thorton's Crane is a portrait of suppressed humanity, Big Dave is all bottled-up anger. And the irony is that he is not at all a "villain."
The Man Who Wasn't There is also a very funny movie, and a very entertaining one. It takes everything that's good about film noir and jettisons everything that's weak. It's remarkable in the way it blends genres, defies convention, draws us in and breaks our hearts.