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| Barton Fink |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 116 |
| Public Rating: 9.00 (7 votes) |
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Comedy/Drama |
Year: 1991 |
| Writer(s): Joel Coen, Ethan Coen |
| Reviewed by: Arturo Garcia Lasca |
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Back when I used to discuss movies with buddies quite a lot in some forums, a friend kept recommending that I watched "Barton Fink". Sadly, as many movies, this one was not in the video stores near here (If I were to start a video club, I'd do it on a 10 stores building, all full of movies!). Almost accidentally I found it on TV today, and all I could do is bang my head against the wall for not buying this long ago when I first heard of it.
The film is set in the 1940's, and Barton Fink (John Turturro) is introduced to us as a writer whose latest play has been greatly received by the critics. It is then that Barton gets involved in a Hollywood contract, and his new career starts, now he writes films. He is told that not much experience is needed, and it doesn't matter if he hasn't watched many films, all he needs to know is how to tell a story. His assignment is to write a story about a wrestler, knowing from the beggining that it will be a B-movie and it doesn't need to be too deep or poetic.
Barton gets a bit 'blocked' and he can't seem to find the idea that will launch his entire writing for the story. In the process, he meets a few other people, like writer W.P. Mayhew (John Maloney) and his secretary Audrey (Judy Davis), and another resident of the hotel, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman). Not many characters are involved, and Turturro is on screen throughout most of the movie.
This is by far my favourite dark comedy ever, seriously. I just loved it, it's truly impressive, the way the film has hilarious moments and yet you can see the dramatic aspect of it, refusing to believe this is only a comedy with the only purpose of making us laugh. Don't get me wrong, it does make us laugh, but never getting silly, it's just great.
With every Coen brothers movie I see, I convince myself a bit more that these two men are geniuses. This film made me laugh pretty much the same as another Coen bro's film, "The Big Lebowski", with the only difference that this one was more serious. No drugs or idiotic situations here, it's usually serious, and when it's not, it's so unique and original it cracks me up.
The acting was superb, Turturro and Goodman (who both have appeared in other Coen's films) were awesome, I simply loved them in here. Michael Lerner, who played the man who hired Mr. Fink to write for his company, actually earned an oscar nomination for his role in here. The music score is great, I loved it, I even kept watching the entire credits rolling because the music was so good. The ideas in this movie are truly worth watching, the Coen's can make such a simple fact, such as wallpaper getting off the wall, look like something we've never seen before, making us wonder all sorts of stuff.. In my opinion, "Barton Fink" is a masterpiece in it's own way, do whatever it takes to watch this film ASAP if you haven't yet.
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