Set in the late 1940s and something of the twilight zone, elevated and transfigured by the Coen's insight into the strangeness of ordinary existence.
Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) goes about the business of cutting hair with a stoic resignation. He's stuck in a rut and has no clue how to get out. Enter Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito), a chatty new customer with a bad rug. He sees the future and it's called dry cleaning and all he needs is a willing investor. When Crane discovers that his bookkeeper wife, Doris (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with Big Dave (James Gandolfini), her boss at Nirdlinger's department store, the gears of change start turning.
Special Agent Matti
The man who wasn't there has the odd resonance with Ethan and Joel's immediately previous film, O brother, where art thou?
There's a journey back through time to a simpler age which turns out to be not so simpler after all. The characters appear to be cardboard cut-outs then turn side on and show the true depth of their personalities. The people are ordinary yet they are drawn into extraordinary situations.It's good.
It's just not that good. The lives of the characters are smaller than your own. Ed is a wonderfully numbed man but you can't connect with someone like that: they have no extensions onto which you can grab. Doris is equally worn down by the stunning lack of excitement in her life and is too smooth in her mundanaeity to give you a handhold. Even the big dreaming Big Dave has dreams that reach only moderate levels of mediocrity. Their cares, their worries, their follies, their foibles, their loves are more like bacteria swarming under a microscope than anything to which you can relate.
Which is not to say that The man who wasn't there isn't funny, it's often hilarious, but you'll walk out of the cinema feeling better about your life because no matter how bad it is, and it is, at least you aren't that bad.
Billy Bob overcomes his distinctive screen presence to bring you new levels of the small man living his small life. Ed is as exciting as cardboard and has all the thrilling passion of blancmange. If you can remember back to U2's Numb then you'll know exactly how he is. Frances, a deserved favourite of Ethan and Joel, is a woman living her life according to the great American plan: school, marriage and, in lieu of family, clerical work. Her affair with Big Dave is so boring that it doesn't even make it onto the screen. James is James.
The man who wasn't there falls under its own wheels in that a film about a numb man can only result in a numb film (and a numb audience), but you'll still be able to use it for your fix of Coenism. Just let it wash over you.
MA 15+ (Medium level violence, adult themes)
116 minutes (1:56 hours)
Film: 26 December 2001
DVD rental: 20 November 2002
VHS rental: 20 November 2002
DVD retail: 30 April 2003
VHS retail: 30 April 2003
