Ave!
Hullo all! It’s late again, but I did promise you my review of the new Coen Brothers’ film, Hail Caesar!, so I thought I’d put it in a nutshell for you!
Hail Caesar! is not going to be a film for everyone – I’m saying this right now. It is more than a bit quirky, without being overly odd, and the whole film is steeped very deeply in Christian symbology – fitting for the eponymous film-within-a-film, which is an early fifties attempt at telling the story of The Christ. Ultimately, the thing that may put people off is that it is a film in which a lot happens, yet nothing happens. By the end, status quo reigns supreme.
Having said that, if you enjoy multi-threaded stories with lots of characters, if you enjoy allowing the story to guide you along gently, and if you enjoy analysing symbology after the fact, Hail Caesar! is well worth going to see! It is very much a storyteller’s film, one that increases in enjoyability as one becomes more familiar with both film tropes and Christian tropes.
The performances are top-notch as well – Josh Brolin plays understatement like only he himself can, and it works so very well for his staid ’50s no-nonsense studio head. As the lead character, he is the narrative device that ties the whole film and its multiple threads together, and ultimately much more within the symbology of the film, and he carries it with good humour and classic mid-twentieth century conservatism. George Clooney has immense amounts of fun as Hail Caesar!’s lead actor, a hammy flagship artist who just lets life carry him along with a sort of quiet amusement.
Anyway, I’m sure I could dissect it more, but I think it’d be much more worthwhile if you went to see it yourself! That’s Hail Caesar, a Coen Bros. film, released in early March of this year.
‘Til Friday, folks!
M.
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