Burn After Reading character analysis
Osborne Cox (John Malkovich)
- Osborne Cox has spent almost his entire life with the CIA—a surprising level of devotion considering he thinks he’s smarter than just about everyone else at the agency.
- He’s been accused of having a drinking problem. A former CIA analyst, Cox has just been handed a severe demotion due to his alcohol consumption.
- Rather than face the ignominy of a lower security clearance, he’s decided to resign. His wife, Katie, is planning to divorce him and take everything—a fact that would be of great value to the oblivious Osborne.
- Anger is evident as Burn After Reading starts at bland government offices where he is being demoted, and within seconds, he is yelling at everybody in the room: ‘This is a crucifixion!’
- He has a habit of drowning his rage in alcohol, which leads to drunken parties where he engages boisterously.
- Eventually, his desperation leads to violent outbursts as various characters attempt to blackmail him over a lost data disk.
- Other sins include Gluttony (due to his drinking) and Sloth (due to his post-job aimlessness).
- His personality is bellicose, angry, and deeply cynical.
Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton)
- Katie is among Burn After Reading’s most underwritten characters, but Tilda Swinton’s poise makes her memorable.
- As Osbourne’s wife, she seems relatively unaffected by his bouts of rage, largely because of her plan to divorce him and take him for every penny.
- With the help of an experienced lawyer, she exacerbates Osborne’s anger in the process.
- Her other sins include Lust (in her affair with Harry Pfarrer), Vanity (seen primping in front of a mirror), and Anger (irritably handling a child at her practice).
Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney)
- Harry Pfarrer has an extensive sex life, which includes ongoing affairs and connections through online romantic services.
- His character exhibits Lust, enjoying not just dalliances but also indulging in gluttonous behaviors, such as scarfing cheese at parties.
- His Vanity is revealed through his consistent desire to ‘get a run in,’ further showcasing his shallow pursuits.
Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand)
- Linda is portrayed as a hilarious caricature of Vanity, determined to undergo several surgical cosmetic procedures.
- Her obsession with these surgeries drives the main plotline of Burn After Reading, along with most of the ensuing mayhem and violence.
- As she is followed by government spooks and surveillance helicopters, this embodiment of Vanity becomes the center of attention by the film’s conclusion.
The film serves as more than just a satire on espionage; it offers a scathing critique of modern America as a superficial, post-political society where various forms of cheating come easily. Ultimately, the story emphasizes how petty the lives of its characters are.
Moreover, it is a series of comedic encounters portraying each character as hapless, driven, lonely, and sex-starved wishful thinkers.
Is Burn After Reading worth watching?
The Coen Brothers deliver Burn After Reading with a kind of newfound cynicism attached to it. It’s funny, but it’s also surprisingly dark and sad, and even poignant to some extent. Based on the Coen’s first wholly original screenplay since 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, Burn After Reading features a plethora of classic Coen staples:
- Repetitive (and brilliant) dialogue employing a strange and almost poetic use of curse words.
- A multifaceted plot featuring slightly dim-witted characters in way over their heads.
- Blacker-than-the-night comedy.
- Over-the-top performances from a pool of actors.
What I loved most about the movie is trying to get into the Coen’s heads and see what they think is funny. For instance, it’s great to think that the Coens probably thought that applying a booming, ominous drum-dominated ‘epic’-type musical score to the movie in the style of a Tony Scott action-thriller would be absolutely hilarious. This is just one example of the many jokes in the movie that soar right over your head.
Blessed with one of the more impressive ensemble casts of any film this year, Burn After Reading features fantastically colourful, over-the-top performances. However, each character carries an added level of sadness and poignancy that enhances the physical comedy of the actors’ performances.
The Coen Brothers have an interesting sense of humour, which is presented front and center in their latest film. Featuring great, uproarious performances from a stellar ensemble cast, the Coens truly give it their all with their offbeat comedy. While the film occasionally reaches beyond its apparent genre limitations, it provides something more poignant and truthfully sad.
Despite the solid 7.0 rating and the 63 on Metascore, which are all positive, especially for a mainstream US movie, Burn After Reading is a portrait of men and women who are self-absorbed to the point of ridiculousness. The Coen Brothers have crafted another clever comedy/thriller with an outlandish plot and memorable characters. While Pitt and McDormand are the standout performers, Clooney gives a surprisingly vulnerable performance, and Malkovich excels as the rather gruff, alcoholic CIA agent.
Wickedly funny and plainly outrageous, Burn After Reading gleefully takes potshots at spy films, making a big deal out of nothing. The characters are zany, and the plot coils upon itself. I enjoyed Burn After Reading for its unconventional plot and hilarious performance from Brad Pitt, showcasing so many stupid people played by a cast of awesomeness.
Burn After Reading themes and messages
The foundation of every successful satire is a heavy dose of skepticism about the human race. This skepticism is almost never articulated, but nonetheless serves as a powerful psychic reminder.
The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, have been making movies since 1984. Notably, no two films are alike. Their range seems endless, demonstrating their courage in trying something new each time they get the green light.
The setting of Washington D.C. is populated by assorted egos, philanderers, and wishful thinkers. This works perfectly with the theme: making the wrong decisions is much easier than making the right ones.
A lot of the film’s success lies with its super cast:
- George Clooney as Harry Pfarrer, a sex-obsessed government employee;
- John Malkovich as Osbourne (Ozzie) Cox, an alcoholic CIA operative;
- Tilda Swinton as his icy wife, Katie Cox, who’s getting it on with Pfarrer;
- Frances McDormand as Linda Litzke, a gym employee yearning for a complete makeover via plastic surgery;
- Brad Pitt as a sort of nudnik intrigued by a hair-brained scheme to blackmail Cox.
The plot of “Burn After Reading” is not the point. Instead, it is a series of comedic encounters showing each character as hapless, driven, lonely, sex-starved, wishful thinkers. The final scene is sharp, funny, and devastating.
The Coen brothers identified idiocy as a major theme of “Burn After Reading.” Joel stated that he and his brother have ‘a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters’ and described Clooney and Pitt’s characters as ‘dueling idiots.’ More than just a satire on espionage, the movie critiques modern America as a superficial, post-political society where cheating is all too easy.
Furthermore, “Burn After Reading” is at its heart a movie about how we navigate a world flooded with information and disinformation. Additionally, it explores a more fundamental theme of mid-life crisis and ennui running throughout the film.
Coen Brothers filmography
Rest assured, ‘Burn After Reading’ is NOTHING like ‘No Country for Old Men.’ Of course, the Coen Brothers have always defied the rules, so it would have been unreasonable to expect them to pull an Eastwood by following an Oscar-winning film with something even remotely similar. The Coen Brothers have always exhibited nothing less than artistic integrity, and ‘Burn After Reading’ fairly well proves it.
With ‘Burn After Reading,’ the Coen Brothers have crafted another clever comedy/thriller with an outlandish plot and memorable characters. It’s a series of comedic encounters showing each man or woman as hapless, driven, lonely, sex-starved, wishful thinkers.
The joy of a Coen Brothers film is that it IS confusing, yet somehow always remains coherent. It’s as if the Coen Brothers have, at least in their own minds, sat down and worked through every detail so that the utter chaos somehow makes sense.
Brad Pitt goes completely against stereotype and pulls off his finest performance in years, even better than ‘The Assassination of Jesse James.’ Here, he’s a fuzzy, off-kilter fitness instructor named Chad who finds a computer disk at the gym where he works with fellow instructor Linda, a spot-on perfect and quite touching Frances McDormand.
Burn After Reading is a portrait of men and women who are self-absorbed to the point of ridiculousness. Among these comedic caricatures, however, is one grounded, reasonably levelheaded individual: Ted. Ted is a quiet, fiftysomething single man who secretly has a crush on Linda.
There are very few filmmakers where I can say, ‘They’ve never made a bad film.’ The Coen Brothers, however, have consistently been at the top of their game in creating low and modestly budgeted films that are stellar in virtually every way.
One of the funniest movies ever made. The Coen Brothers seem to have a catalog of movies that are both beloved and highly underrated. And no better example of the latter than ‘Burn After Reading.’
Naming it as “the Most Underrated Coen Brothers Movie,” MovieWeb wrote that “Burn After Reading is a masterful work of satire and among the most cunning films that the duo ever made together.” Indeed, what was first funny, then prophetic, has now been recognized as a classic comedy that provides each generation a dark…
Burn has a lot going for it. As with most Coen Brothers’ movies, this spy spoof has a brilliantly quirky story that is full of interestingly flawed characters.
Burn After Reading comedy style
The Coen brothers’ ‘Burn After Reading’ is a screwball comedy that occasionally becomes something more.
The characters are zany, and the plot coils upon itself with dizzy zeal. Furthermore, the roles seem like a perfect fit for the actors involved, including Brad Pitt as Chad, a gum-chewing, fuzzy-headed physical fitness instructor. I’ve always thought of him as a fine actor, and here he reveals a dimension that, shall I say, we haven’t seen before.
Moreover, there is a poignance in the roles played by Frances McDormand and George Clooney, both looking for love in all the wrong places. McDormand plays Linda Litzke, one of Chad’s fellow instructors, who is searching for her perfect match on the Web despite believing that she is far from perfect. In a scene of astonishing frankness, she undergoes a merciless evaluation by a plastic surgeon and decides to have multiple cosmetic procedures done, saying ‘I’ve gotten about as far as this body can take me.’
The movie’s success depends on the characters and the dialogue. For instance, Linda and Chad, reminiscent of Rupert and Masha in ‘King of Comedy’, try to peddle their disc to the Russian Embassy, hoping to raise money for her plastic surgery. Consequently, the CIA becomes involved, with a gung-ho officer, confused but determined, reporting to his boss, who has limited dialogue but delivers punch lines with every line spoken.
This is not a great Coen brothers film. Nor is it one of their bewildering excursions off the deep end. It’s funny and sometimes delightful, but also a little sad. Interestingly, the dialogue sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realize all of these people are mad.
Furthermore, ‘Burn After Reading’ seems to be a defiant statement by the Coen brothers about the nature of theme and the truly cosmic insignificance of events and the relationships between them. For all its twists and turns, coming out of ‘Burn After Reading’ can leave you feeling like you were just played; therein lies its genius.
Additonally, the film commits to its twisted narrative with such jaw-dropping intensity. Even though it can be logically parsed from beginning to end, you will nevertheless be left wondering what the hell you just watched. This is clearly where the Coen brothers’ signature brand of post-modernism comes into play.
Finally, ‘Burn After Reading’ is a beautifully produced mix of spy story, US zeitgeist satire, and relationship drama. It cons the audience into seeing depths – and Fargo parallels – that may not actually be there.
Burn After Reading ending explained
The ending of Burn After Reading is intentionally open-ended, leaving viewers to ponder the characters’ fates and the consequences of their actions. After a series of misadventures, which include blackmail, murder, and mistaken identities, the film concludes with a CIA officer stating, “What did we learn, Palmer?” The other officer responds, “I don’t know, sir.” This exchange encapsulates the film’s overarching theme of chaos and absurdity.
One interpretation suggests that the Coen brothers are highlighting the futility of the characters’ actions and their incessant pursuit of self-interest. The characters in Burn After Reading are driven by their desires for money, power, and validation, ultimately leading them to their downfall. By ending the film with uncertainty, the Coen brothers emphasize the cyclical nature of human behavior.
Another reading of the ending is that the Coen brothers are commenting on the absurdity of the intelligence community and its inability to learn from its mistakes. Despite the chaos caused by the characters, the CIA officers appear to have learned nothing, reflecting a larger critique of bureaucratic systems.
The final scene features events happening off-screen, with two CIA characters acknowledging, perhaps through the fourth wall, that nothing made sense and we learned nothing. The ending is abrupt for most people, as they feel dumber than the characters at the end. The movie perfectly depicts the idiocy of our day-to-day lives.
Overall, the consequences outweigh the actual cause, highlighting the randomness and lack of meaningful resolution in the characters’ lives.
Swinton described Burn After Reading as ‘a kind of monster caper movie’ and said of the characters, ‘All of us are monsters – like, true monsters. It’s ridiculous.’ This supports the idea that the film portrays flawed characters in absurd situations, culminating in an ending that leaves the audience questioning the very nature of the events.
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