- O Brother Where Art Thou? takes a classic story, changes the setting, and populates it with quirky characters. Wait, I feel like I've written that about a Coen brothers film before. What I may not have written before is that I generally liked the experience. I don't think this is a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly an enjoyable entry in the better half of the Coen brothers' filmography. It's also the most creative and musical version of The Odyssey that you'll ever see, but that probably goes without saying.
- The quirky protagonists in this case are three convicts who escaped a chain gang somewhere in the depression-era American south. Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) is the brains of the operation, although his concern for his pomaded hair often eclipses what most people would consider to be more urgent matters. Pete (John Turturro) is the bellyacher who has the bad fortune to get either recaptured, hung, or transformed into a toad about halfway through the film. Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) is the decent but simple chap who would actually believe that his friend had been transformed into a toad.
- Predictably, the three men run into a colorful cast of characters, some of whom are more recognizably Homeric in origin than others. After they encounter young Tommy (Chris Thomas King), they quickly take advantage of his diabolically attained guitaring prowess to record a hit bluegrass single for a blind radio station manager (Stephen Root). There's also an accidental collaboration with George Nelson (Michael Badalucco), who prefers not to be called "Baby Face" while he's robbing banks. Naturally, they run into some sexy sirens (Mia Tate, Musetta Vander, Christy Taylor) who deprive them of Pete. They also encounter a perfectly cyclopean fellow named Big Dan Teague (John Goodman), whom they must battle again at a magnificently rendered Klan rally. Slowly, we discover that the point of this odyssey is not to "seek the treasure," but rather to win back the heart of Everett's wife, Penny (Holly Hunter). And, of course, not to get hung in the process.
- Whatever else it may be, O Brother Where Art Thou? is as fun a spectacle as the Coen brothers ever created. For what was quite possibly the first time in their career, the Coens created an film that never teeters over into the realm of bad taste and that actually has some degree of respect for its own characters. Filmed in lovely sepia tones that, along with the brilliant soundtrack and Tom Joad costuming, clearly evoke the Great Depression, it is also one of their better-looking creations. The huge ensemble (which also includes Charles Durning, Ray McKinnon, Wayne Duvall, and Daniel von Barge) is as good as any of their casts, which is saying something, and the entire affair just feels like a great big, lively, old-fashioned hootenanny. I'm not sure there's much of a point beyond that, but maybe there doesn't need to be.
- Amazingly, the singing was dubbed. It looked very convincing.
- As mentioned, this was sortof an adaptation of The Odyssey.
