Ray and Abby just want a simple life together but instead become a house divided by bloodshed, much of it their own. This modern noir reflects shadowy images upon the blank moral canvas of the protagonists, people who see only a blackened version of reality. The Coen brothers subvert some of the tropes of the genre while DP Barry Sonnenfeld (who would become a successful Director) mimics classic noir compositions, as characters are often reduced to silhouettes, utilizing extreme low angle shots to reveal slowly spinning ceiling fans, where rain-drenched roads and blurry headlights paint a thick atmosphere of dread, and a grinning chuckling psychopath seems like a harmless buffoon.
The Coen brothers birth an anti-noir heroine in Abby (Frances McDormand) while investing Ray (John Getz) with the gullible vulnerability of a lover, a man who typically allows himself to be led astray by the femme fatale as subsumed by base desires. The setup seems classic, as Ray and Abby discuss their affair as they flee from her husband and his boss Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), before fucking in a seedy motel room while being followed by a mysterious figure. This portly shadow becomes Private Dick Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) whose slow Texas drawl, inane humor and flabby girth belie his true sadistic personality. But the couple aren’t planning a murder or other violent scheme to harm Marty, Ray just wants his last paycheck and they’ll be on their way. But Marty can’t live with the B&W images developed indelibly within his psyche’s darkroom, and after failing to kidnap Abby, decides to murder her and her paramour. And it all becomes blood simple from there, a frenzy of violence and death with each character blind to the larger picture, acting out of flawed motives and misinformation. The McGuffin involves a lost lighter that will reveal the true killer to our protagonists, but it’s obscured by rotting fish. As Ray believes Abby killed Marty, and Abby believing Ray killed him (or tried to) by burying him alive, they are both confused when the third party appears like Death personified. What’s refreshing is how the story focuses upon the emotional weight of murder, how its emotional cancer eats away at rational thought, and their actions become hyper-focused and ridiculous.
The final knife-stabbing act and fight for survival pits our slender femme against the Wellsian bulk of the Private Investigator, the vagina penetrates the Dick, so to speak. But the truth is elided from both, as she neither has the implicating Zippo and the dying man isn’t Marty. But Visser will sure be glad to give him a message, if he sees him. Which should be very soon.
Final Grade: (B+)
