Review of No Country for Old Men (2007) by Jasonj — 07 Apr 2008

The review from the Onion gets it right in its tag-line above: ''NCFOM reminds us that civilization is the aberration'; ugliness and evil are the norm in our world. That said: What if the film had a conventional ending, a shootout between Brolin and Chigurgh; and one of them got the money-- or perhaps neither of them? The film would likely have resolved with a formulaic 'what is good?, what is evi? 'motif, probably thinking enough for most filmgoers.

But that doesn't happen, and we are left with something much more difficult (or impossible) to digest. Jones will endure, like his father leading the way through the cold mountain pass, bearing the struggling, sputtering light into the unknown, into nothingness.

And when our time comes, like Brolin's does (and Jones's will soon), none of us will see it coming. And the result? The world, with its default setting for ugliness, will continue to turn, unconcerned with us, or with our notions of good or evil and our struggles to define or contain either.

And that's the message-- and it's bleak, no doubt. The film's draw for critics and other thinkers is this message, however; and it is precisely because it is far more sophisticated than a freshman philosophy resolution that would have left us questioning the nature of good and evil;or, heaven forbid, an ending that would have entailed the death of Chigurgh, the credits rolling on a final shot of a millionaire Brolin and his wife sipping Margaritas on a Mexican beach.

The film's message is indeed nihilist, perhaps beyond nihilist; and it's great in the way that Macbeth is great, and for many of the same reasons.