This is the logical culmination of one of the many things that the Coen Brothers have excelled at: dialects.
We heard it all throughout Fargo, Hudsucker, Miller's Crossing, O'Brother, Ladykillers, a fun bit in Hail Caeser, and most pronounced in their westerns, True Grit and Buster Scruggs. And even after all that: The Tragedy Of Macbeth is the most daring example. Half-a-Coen's script is so committed to the source material's authenticity that it's beyond just an If-It-Ain't-Broke-Don't-Fix-It approach, but more impressive in how linguistically ambitious it is.
And with someone like Denzel Washington at the forefront of the play/character, there's no room to go wrong. He's such a great actor that he could play anything. Even in Macbeth his fucking undeniable New York drawl punches through ("cross" and "thought" bare it the most) and I don't just buy it, I cherish it. It's anachronistic as fuck but that's just a testament to how good he is. He could play Crocodile Dundee and I don't doubt I'd be like "Denzel is radiant in this."
As Allison Wilmore lays it out, "Washington manages the near impossible feat of delivering his lines as though he's putting them together in the moment, speaking some of the most famous sentences in the English language as though they're actually being dredged up out of Macbeth's roiling consciousness." For so long I've been annoyed by stage-acting austerity in these kinds of movies. The kind of one-note haughty line deliveries that sound regurgitated rather than given natural cadence or personality (the flat tone most of the walk-and-talk dialog has in Game Of Thrones). As redundant as it sounds, these performances come across performative - not an issue for Denzel Washington. It's also significant how old this Macbeth is: 66 year-old Denzel imbues the role with world-weary, coming-of-old-age resentment and bleakness. This Macbeth is such a cynical, exhausted, paranoid, delusional, cocky, insecure wreck and he nails every utterance of a man clinging to anything to take with him down the drain. Circling the widening gyre with him is Frances McDormand, giving her best performance in years, as the two share an uneasy chemistry. She's desperate and conspiratorial, cultivating her husband's deteriorating mental acuity.
This is matched by the milky, dreamy photography. There's a great sense of alienation as Coen's sound stages operate as a paradox of world-building: the more of the world we see, the more desolate it feels, like the threatening unease in Part 18 of The Return when 'Richard' and 'Carrie' set off for Twin Peaks. So, for every composition or lighting choice that inspires eye-bugging adoration, there's a tension, a pressure behind the eyes that makes it impossible to be comfortable because the mind is always looking for something hiding in the fog. This is the closest either Coen has gotten to the horror genre and it's clear at least one of them should get even closer. It has the tension of No Country but it's not flirting with something supernatural, it's fully communing with it.
And this is as good a time as any to summon Kathryn Hunter's moniker to the conversation because, holy shit, does she establish herself here. This is arguably the role that required the most of any of its actors and she's not just chewing the scenery but binge-eating it like a buffet, just plate-after-plate snarfing the shit down. She's a scarier witch than any double-V Eggers creation* as this being genuinely feels otherworldly and unpredictable. She's a tormenting presence that lights mist on fire. The whole cast bring their A-game but Hunter and Washington are beyond enchanting.
Every story beat had me rapt and the tumbling final act is a clinic on editing as, unsurprisingly, this thing is immaculately paced. All of this can be said for the story itself: well-tread text that Coen tricks us into peering into for the first time. Astonishing what he has pulled off here.
*Excluding The Lighthouse, Eggers has been hopelessly chasing this kind of movie his whole career, especially with Nosferatu, to no avail.
I love this movie so much. It's so good that it makes me want to reassess other movies' grades.
Speaking of unfairly judging movies on the basis of other movies, I'm gonna open my Honorable Mention trophy case and sneak one out that I'd hidden cuz I can't not mention That Other Coen Movie: I adore Henry James' Drive-Away Dolls Dykes or, my personal title: Sapphic Lebowski.
Rejected upon release as being too zany, too weird, too kooky—especially compared to the diametrically opposed austerity of Macbeth—it's finding its audience as a potential cult classic. Of course I get the impulse to compare these two but I'm just thankful we have them at all. Like any child of divorce: I'm sad they split up but now we get two Christmases! So I'm not gonna venn-diagram 'em — that's been done to death.
This has remained as funny on my 201st watch as it was on my 1st. Even the filmmaking is funny in itself as Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen's transitions ebb from acid-dipped psychedelia to confrontationally stupid. So many wipes/flips/spins had me begging their unbelievable pardon; cackling with my eyes rolling, befuddled, or genuinely impressed by how cool they were (sometimes a delicious swirl of everything).
Margaret Qualley's performance, which she based on Nic Cage and Tommy Lee Jones, crackles on the same eccentric wavelength of this movie, oscillating from genius to foolish to absolutely baffling - but always entertaining. So is every Dutch angle, snap zoom, and flat medium shot, as they're all executed for optimal comedy.
Because of the Looney Tunes tone this establishes, I was surprised at how tender and sincere it managed to be while somehow never fumbling these tones. As it ventures into perpetually earnest flashbacks and present day breakthroughs about sexual awakening, the movie reveals itself to be more thoughtful than just some whacky crime caper. But there are also these odd moments where we're subjected to quaint juxtapositions between characters that I'm still scratching my head over (complimentary).
What's funniest of all is Macbeth doesn't leave me with my head cocked to the side like this, it's confidently straightforward. Yet this is the 'dumb' one. The best thing about a Coen movie is how enjoyable it can be on the surface but also how confounding it is underneath that - every new watch is rewarding for one reason or another. They're literary dudes and even if ½ of them is making an abrasively goofy "low-brow“ movie about lesbians and dildos with his gay Wife, it's not without artful integrity.
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