Of Odysseys and pomade obsessions.
There’s something about O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001) that feels like a half-remembered tall tale you might have heard your great-grandparents tell you when you were a kid. A vague impression where everything is dipped in sepia, everyone talks like they just stepped out of an old-timey radio broadcast, and reality takes just enough of a backseat to let an overactive imagination fill in the details.
For me this lives in the same headspace as Big Fish – a world that feels mostly grounded, but with a sense that the mythological can casually bleed in from the margins. Regardless of whether the Coen Brothers actually read The Odyssey or not, they captured its spirit perfectly – complete with giants, temptresses, divine intervention all presented as plausible matter of fact.
And it’s just gorgeous. It plays out like a silent movie that just happens to have sound – big, theatrical performances, exaggerated expressions, and the kind of musicality that makes every scene feel like it’s meant to be felt as much as watched. The music, in fact, is its own kind of magic trick. For a time after the movie’s release, it turned bluegrass into a slight mainstream phenomenon. Whether you liked the genre or not, by the time “Man of Constant Sorrow” come in, you were probably considering buying the soundtrack.
And then there’s George Clooney. Peak Clooney. At the time, he was sparking off raw Hollywood wattage that could have turned this into just two hours of him wagging his head and mugging for the camera like Batman. And maybe there’s a little of that. But this is also the film that reminds you that when he wants to, Clooney can act like it’s nobody’s business. The pomade fixation. The ridiculous (and ever-so quotable) verbosity. The way he leans into looking like a complete fool while somehow still exuding old-school movie-star charm. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
Like Barton Fink or The Big Lebowski, this is another film that only the Coen Brothers could have made. It’s an echo of an echo. A thousand-yard stare into a fleeting daydream where manifestations of absurdity and profundity sit side by side to swap stories about a group of escaped convicts who accidentally cut a hit record.