Barton Fink

My movie review for Barton Fink

Movie Genre: Film Noir

Grade: B-, by Matthew Felsted

                In this film the Coen Brothers take us on yet another dark and chilling path. Like other films they have made Barton Fink contains elements of film noir. Barton Fink is about a writer that finally gets his big break in Hollywood, a break that he tries at first to refuse, but eventually succumbs for financial reasons. He is commissioned with the task of writing a wrestling story but while he writes it he has to live in a hotel. His new residence is hotel hell, a miserable place where he meets his next door neighbor after reporting him to the front office clerk for being terribly distracting with his screaming. His name is Charlie Meadows and he has obvious problems. The hotel in many ways represents hell. Every time Barton Fink starts to write something distracts him. The wall starts peeling and the strange goo drips out. Typical of other movies from the Coen Brothers, Barton Fink descends into a darker world after a female writer he sleeps with is murdered. It is later revealed that the murderer is Charlie Meadows.

                I give it a B- for being so morbidly depressing. Nonetheless the experience created by this chilling tale is unique and may will give a strange but pleasing feeling.