Adaptation

I’ve said it before. No Country For Old Men is a great book. Now, thanks to the Coen Brothers, it’s an equally excellent movie. Both are bloody, violent, and not for the squeamish, but as I said in my review of the novel, the violence never feels out of character to the story. The film stays pretty faithful to the book, but the Coen Brothers manage to inject their particular brand of dark humor into the story. The cinematography is gorgeous, especially the shots of the landscape, which is such an important part of all of McCarthy’s books. It’s no different in this film, as the movie immediately establishes place, opening with shot after shot of the Texas plains in all their stark beauty. Throughout the movie, the quality of light made me feel as if I was standing in El Paso or along the Rio Grande, and that I could almost smell the grass and dust. I was definitely sucked in, and I wasn’t the only one. It was pretty incredible to sit in a packed theater that was completely silent for minutes at a time, only to hear the whole audience gasp as each character met their ultimate fate. Keeping an audience watching with bated breath is an impressive feat (especially these days). Javier Bardem is deservedly getting all the press for his turn as cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh, but Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin give excellently understated performances as well. I won’t be at all surprised to hear a lot more about the film come Oscar time.

As an interesting aside, I couldn’t place the actress who played Brolin’s wife, even though she looked incredibly familiar. Thank goodness for IMDB. Turns out it was Kelly MacDonald, the Scottish actress who played the schoolgirl Ewan MacGregor hooks up with in Trainspotting. Lass does a pretty convincing Texas/white trash accent.