I was really surprised that out of six stories, so many of them were such downers.
Meal Ticket and The Gal Who Got Rattled just seemed unnecessarily depressing and turned me off of the whole thing.
Most of the Coen's films have a little twinkle in their eye and don't turn in such dark directions, so I wonder why they felt the need to do so here, and do it repeatedly.
I'm hoping this is the Coen's warm-up for McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Can't get more dour and depressing than that.
shareI don’t know about that twinkle. If you think about it, Coen Brothers movies with upbeat endings are the exception more than the rule. Most of the time their characters don’t fare so well by the end of the movie.
shareYeah, but typically there's more of a wry, comedic tone. Take Fargo, for instance. It's a tragedy, but also a black comedy.
shareI detected wry comedic tones, kind of their hallmark, in every short story in this anthology. Some more pronounced than others. I do agree that most of them had tragic endings, but the dead weren’t always innocent victims either.
Some filmmakers really rub your nose in tragedy making you feel like crap when the movie ends. Lars Von Trier, who really is a talented filmmaker, comes to mind, but there’s others. The Coens understand if you temper tragedy with just a dash of humor you make it palatable and the audience doesn’t leave the theater feeling violated.