Sometimes there's a film sometimes there's a film.

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2010)

Now it was sometime in the year 1997, after the powers that be at the Academy of Motion Pictures and Science had decided to give a whole lot of recognition and awards to a film called Fargo, that a couple of boys named Joel and Ethan (though the most common nomenclature simply called them the Coen brothers) were thinking of making their next film. Now Joel and Ethan knew they had done well with their last film, that aforementioned Fargo, and they thought that their next film should be big. A big film. A film so big that it might as well have the word big in the title. And they - and we're talking about the Coen brothers here – well they just so happened to come up with such a motion picture, a picture which managed to be big as well as managing to be well outside of any range of conventional expectations. And that very motion picture happened to be one now known as The Big Lebowski.
Or something like that. In fact, the Coens have, true to form, resisted discussing the inspiration for or meaning of what can still be considered one of their wildest, strangest and most inspired works of cinematic genius in as adamant and heated terms as the debates speculating on the film's 'true meaning' or 'purpose'. But part of the genius of the film is that whether regarded as a caustic political allegory (it is worth paying attention to the brief snippets of early 1990s American political news shown and referred to regardless), a loving and witty send up of all the conventions of a pulp, Raymond Chandler style film noir detective story (with a knowingly incomprehensible, convoluted plot) or simply a remarkably strange comedy, the film works. For whatever reason, the precise cocktail (a cinematic White Russian perchance) of absurdly quotable dialogue, inspired and memorable character bits, bizarre dream sequences, slow motion musical interludes and occasional dashes of self-reflexive profundity, all fused together by the impeccable technical double act of Roger Deakins' sumptuous cinematography and Carter Burwell's obtrusively resonant music makes for a work of strange, clunky madness and perfection which never quite manages to do what is expected of it or hit a wrong note, no matter what inferences or expectations the viewer brings to the table.
But the film's true genius lies in the fact that, despite its guided bizarreness baiting analysis, the most gleefully likely 'point' is that the film, like the ongoing in-joke of its nihilist antagonists, is ultimately not about 'anything'. The entire enterprise can be seen as an extensive exercise in 'talking a lot but ultimately saying nothing', much like Sam Elliott's mysterious Stranger's priceless rambling of a narration. One almost dares to believe that the Coens' true joke is all of the speculation, controversy, debates over the film and religions derived from it being ultimately unwarranted, as the film was crafted with no such motivations, or ultimately any motivations at all. And ultimately, perhaps the most poignant point that can be extracted from the film is that it doesn't need a point, as entertaining as it can be to try to impose meaning on the strange and hilarious string of events passed off as a narrative. The film functions beautifully simply as a chance to hang out with some lovable, hilarious and very memorable characters, to experience the thrill of a mystery haphazardly investigated (with the viewer continually left as befuddled as the characters), to listen to some great music and to ultimately learn, much like The Dude, to simply accept the absurdity of it all and simply exist and try to get through. And again, whether such an absence of point is truly the most satisfying explanation of the film remains a moot point – no matter what lens the film is examined through, it has never been so enjoyable to enter the gleefully odd, remarkably stylized world of the Coen brothers and simply exist.
But the film's true joy lies in its collection of eccentric characters and equally off-the-wall performances. Jeff Bridges has never been better, inhabiting the laid back, drugged up and haphazardly heroic role of The Dude with an uncanny ease and magnificent comedic timing – a perpetually watchable triumph of characterization. Consistent scene-stealer John Goodman is equally priceless as faux-Jewish, rage-filled Vietnam veteran Walter Sobchak, a bellowing, stubbornly illogical yet strangely lovable satire of the crass yet well intentioned Western stereotype. Julianne Moore similarly generates a performance which is outlandish, flat out hilarious and hits perhaps a little too close to home as an absurdist feminist visual artist. David Huddleston rants, raves, screeches and bellows to sublime comedic effect as the titular industrialist The Big Lebowski, and Steve Buscemi transforms clueless yet lovable into a work of art as the continually "out of his element" Donny. But sheer magic can be found just as much in the supporting cast, with Philip Seymour Hoffman as obsessively prissy personal assistant Brandt, John Turturro as grotesque, purple spandex-clad, gyrating, former pedophile bowler Jesus Quintana, Peter Stormare as a deadpan nihilist porn star and Tara Reid as the compulsively greedy and promiscuous Bunny Lebowski along with the innumerable supporting bit parts each demonstrating exquisitely inventive and staggeringly funny characterizations, all excelling during their respective moments to shine.
Without question the film will not prove fitting for all tastes, and complaints have been raised of its being self-indulgently alienating and strange, overlong and aimlessly rambling. Yet for those generally attuned to the Coens' incomparably oddball frequency, The Big Lebowski proves about as inventive, fresh, compelling and insanely comical (as well as potentially thematically provocative) as a film can get, and even the articulated complaints against it somehow manage to work more in its favour than detrimentally. One of the few films which visibly improves from an already high standard upon each viewing, The Big Lebowski remains a cinematic comedy masterpiece. And yes, the Dude abides.
-10/10