Fascinoma

Last night I saw No Country for Old Men, about which I had heard some good and bad things, and so hadn't rushed out to see, though I am a Cohen Brothers fan. Then a friend with good film judgment told me it was great.

It has gotten some pretty bad reviews, but then again so did Miller's Crossing. Like that great film, it is set in a seamy milieu, is very violent, and focused around a character who lives by his own very idiosyncratic (and perhaps mad) code. Like Miller's Crossing it features wonderful performances by everyone including the fabulously and yet very plausibly beautiful Kelly MacDonald whom I first noticed in a plaid jumper, when she played Renton's jailbait girlfriend in Trainspotting. Here she is wholly tranformed into a Texas redneckette and she nails it. What is it about those UK actors? They can actually....act.

No Country also has some really stunning photography. It made me want to go to Texas. Unlike Miller's Crossing it doesn't have a Hollywood ending, that is to say, no orgasmically satisfying comeuppance are gotten. I suspect some disliked it for this.

In virtually every case I found that what others pointed to as fatal flaws in the piece, I rather liked as offbeat touches. The whole thing worked quite wonderfully, if oddly.