No Country for Old Men

What to say about “No Country for Old Men”? The Coen Brothers have been in my top ten list of directors since Raising Arizona. Their characters are never really extraordinary people. They’re just drawn from everyday life…..as absurd and banal as it can be. They are always rich in personality and even when they do something over the top or outrageous it never seems cartoonish or out of character. Their circumstances are real because they are real.

I’ve only recently been turned on to the writings of Cormac McCarthy. Never in his books that I've read is there a resolution at the end. You finish the book never sure what really happened to these fantastic, simple people who you’ve come to relate to and cherish in just a few paragraphs of text. And his books always leave me ill at ease and a bit sad for it. The ambiguity of it all, I guess that’s life right?

The pairing of this excellent writer with these two phenomenal filmmakers would seem a match made in heaven. Well, let me tell you, “No Country…” doesn’t disappoint. It starts out slow with a voice over from the Sheriff telling us about the country and his (and his family’s) relationship to it. A moment of intensity hits us. Then it slowly builds up to another and another like a roller coaster keeping you nervously tittering and clutching your seat until the very end of the ride when it slows down again and the Sheriff relates to us another story.

There’s no Hollywood ending to this movie. There’s no happy ending. The guy doesn’t ride off into the sunset with the girl. Nobody walks away from the events in this movie whole again. Everyone lives, and dies, by the choices they made. I’m left again with that uneasy feeling. It’s beautiful and terrible and I couldn’t imagine this movie being made any differently.
Go see it now.