KWIF=Kent's Week in Film.
This Week:
The Thursday Murder Club (2025, d. Chris Columbus - netflix)
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001, d. Joel [and Ethan] Coen - dvd)
The Thin Man (1934, d. W.S. Van Dyke - dvd)
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All alliteration aside [ahh, apologies] the movie is set in England at Coopers Chase, a retirement community set on the grounds of a converted palatial estate. It's very, very bougie. There, new resident, Joyce (Celia Imrie), finds herself a new set of friends who run a club solving cold cases in the puzzle room on Thursdays.
The club is headed by Elizabeth (Dame Helen Mirren) who used to work for MI6, and also features psychiatrist Ibrahim (Sir Ben Kingsley), and ex-rights activist Ron (Pierce Brosnan), and each member has a particular set of skills to bring to the table the others do not. Joyce, as an ex-nurse, brings with her medical training and knowledge.
No sooner is Joyce revealing in her new friends and the latest cold case then rumblings of discord between the partners who own Coopers Chase start to spread. Ian Ventham (David Tennant) wants to raze the building (which surely has some have some historical protections, no?) and uproot the adjacent graveyard and develop the land. Tony Curran, Ventham's partner, opposes the project as he has a personal stake in keeping Coopers Chase as is. Soon Tony is dead and it's up to the Thursday Murder Club to figure it out, and, hopefully, at the same time, save their home.
Of course, there are real police on the case, DCI Hudson (Daniel Mays) is frequently irritated by the TMC's involvement in his investigation, but they have a plant, having seeded their young friend Donna (Naomi Ackie) as DCI Hudson's partner on the case.
The film is generally pleasant, with a few amusing polite British chuckles along the way, but in spite of it star power (bright enough to give you a tan) it's about as sharp a mystery as you would find on the Hallmark Channel. The material is so beneath the performers involved, that every time another recognizable face turned up, like Jonathan Pryce or Richard E Grant or Tom Ellis, I could only exclaim "HOW!?!"
The sets, particularly the individual apartments, are beautiful, and the costuming is above average (the actors all, largely, look really good...Brosnan still so damn handsome), but it's so brightly lit and devoid of any real ambience that it looks more like a TV pilot than a feature film.
The music is by Thomas Newman, who can be capable of incredible scores, but here seems like he's on autopilot, not challenging himself in the slightest. At times the sounds would recall Finding Nemo, A Serious of Unfortunate Events or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (also directed by Columbus), but mostly would just feel like the defacto plunking one hears in your average Hallmark holiday romance.
I've seen griping online of an American working on a British production bringing American sensibilities to it, which doesn't serve the story, setting or characters well. And, well, their not wrong. I think part of the Hallmarkiness of this outing is that Americans in trying to evoke "British" production style wind up being too earnest, cutesy and puerile.
I was mildly entertained, but it's not good.
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Filmed in gorgeous black and white contrast by Roger Deakins and set in post-war anywhere America 1949, The Man Who Wasn't There stars Billy Bob Thornton as Ed Crane, a meek-mannered barber. His wife Doris (Francis McDormand) is cheating on him with her boss, Big Dave (James Gandolfini), who she does bookkeeping for at the department store. Ed doesn't seem to mind so much. Doris keeps it pretty descreet.
But when Ed hears from a customer about the future of dry cleaning, and the customer (Jon Polito) needing an investor, Ed, who has kind of fallen into everything in life without really much effort, is ready to take a reach chance, be real proactive. So he blackmails Big Dave with an anonymous letter, threatening to tell his wife (the heiress to the department store business) of the affair, and he will lose everything.
Ed gets the money, but it didn't take much thinking for Big Dave to figure out who was behind it and in the midst of a kerfuffle, Ed kills Big Dave. Unfortunately Doris gets pinched for it. Ed then has to either sit with his guilt or try to exonerate Doris, and he's kind of hapless and ineffective at doing either.
Many a noir finds a hapless bystander getting involved in an intricate plot of murder and/or intrigue, while many other a noir finds a character charging recklessly forward driving the plot through their actions. Ed here is both the instigator and the bystander. In trying just once to do anything proactive in his life, he's set a whole chain of events in motion that he is incapable of stepping in front of to stop it.
And so, as the story plays out, Ed's sad life just gets sadder. He finds a little joy in the piano playing of his lawyer's daughter (Scarlett Johannson) but once again his efforts to try something proactive backfire spectacularly. (I'll diffuse the tension right now, Ed has no sexual desire for teenage ScarJo, and in fact seems like an asexual character overall, not something much represented on screen and probably a might unintentional on the Coens part).
The Man Who Wasn't There is one of the Coens' longer films, brushing up near 2 hours, and in different lighting and pacing it would be another one of their screwball crime films. As it is, it winds up being one of their most visually striking movies (in a repertoire of visually striking movies), but also probably their most laconic by intention. It's devotion to exploring a sensationalistic story but through a humdrum character means the film itself emits a bit of a humdrumminess, and yet, that's really its charm.
I find its exploration of Ed, and his inability to escape his sub-mediocrity (both in life and self), fascinating. He's not a bad person at all, but he's also not a good person. He is the titular man who wasn't there. He floats through life, largely unnoticed, and it's not even that he has desire to be noticed, in fact he seems to prefer not having any attention put on him (like, look how uncomfortable he is with Big Dave trying to be friends with him). This is a film that's so deeply rooted to the ground, that it introduces flying saucer that seems to go to great pains to try to acquire Ed and whisk him away from his drab life into something more exciting, only to decide against it at the last minute a fly off.
The final 20 minutes really is when The Man Who Wasn't There comes to life, with the perfect sour ending that just revels in karma..For some it may be too late, but for me it's the meat of the film, where it goes from being a Coens also-ran to being an also-ran of-note.
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I also realize that in my reluctance to wade through the unfamiliar that I'm liable to miss out on those gems, and it think my life would be much the poorer for never having gone slack-jawed over Myrna Loy as Nora in The Thin Man. Va-va-va-voom.
I had heard about the "Nick and Nora" series long ago, mostly legendary for it's rapid-fire repartee, but my interests never truly aligned. I underestimate old Hollywood productions, thinking that their entertainment factor is significantly reduced based on the naivete of the times in which they were produced. It's true that people were a lot simpler in the olden times, and my modern, refined, erudite, sophisticant palette is just so above it all. I can fall prey to snobbery at times, and think myself better than others, past or present. I'm not proud.
The Thin Man is based on the Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name. Hammett is cited as one of the godfathers of hardboiled detective fiction, but this "comedy of manners" was a real pivot for the writer (in what would ultimately be his last novel). It's central plot revolves around a missing scientist whose secretary has been murdered, and sussing out whether the scientist was the kill or someone else, especially as additional deaths occur and the cast of suspects piles on.
But it's really not the murder mystery that is the draw here. That would be Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy). Nick is a renowned detective who has retired from the profession since marrying socialite Nora and taking up running her father's businesses. They enjoy drinking immeasurably and the fluidity of their alcohol consumption is only outpaced by their snappy banter. They always have the perfect retort for each other, and, well anyone else. They seem perpetually soused and are the liveliest, most high-functioning alcoholics in the world.
Despite his protestations that he's out of the business of sleuthing, Nora implores him to get involved in the case, because she's never seen him do his legendary work. How could any man resist anything Nora implores of him?
The Thin Man is the very definition of rollicking. The wit and charm assault is relentless, but never exhausting, though it can be hard to keep up with. I'm not sure if there's a modern comparison...it's not a comedy assault machine like, say, 30 Rock, it's much more dialogue-centric. I just can't think of any other film scripted with this density of dialogue so persistently.
The murder mystery is engaging enough, if only because of the characters involved. But there are a few little twists I didn't see coming. If I have any disappointments it's that Nora was sidelined when Nick finally capitulated to actually getting involved... the old chauvanistic (deemed chivalrous at the time) man's work, sparring Nora any unpleasantness. I think here naive exuberance would have made it even more fun and adventurous. Plus I just wanted more Nora.
There's five sequels to dive into, so along with more Coens, expect more Thin Man.
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