Flipping around one of our streaming services one Saturday night, Andrea and I stumbled across O Brother, Where Art Thou? and decided why the hell not.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a crime comedy-drama film from the minds of Joel and Ethan Coen, is set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression, loosely based on Homer's epic Greek poem The Odyssey.
Three convicts, Ulysses Everett McGill, Pete Hogwallop, and Delmar O'Donnell, escape from a chain gang and set out to retrieve a treasure Everett buried before the area is flooded to make a lake. A variety of misadventures along the way keep the trio barely ahead of the authorities in pursuit.
Along the way, they pick up Tommy Johnson, a young black man who claims he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play guitar. In need of money, the four stop at a radio broadcast tower where they record a song as The Soggy Bottom Boys.
With the money in their pockets to continue their journey, our three convicts and Tommy part company.
While they continue their journey, our trio is quite unaware that The Soggy Bottom Boys have become a hit music sensation in Mississippi.
Arriving in Everett's home town, Everett confronts his wife Penny, who changed her last name and told his daughters he was dead. He gets into a fight with Vernon T. Waldrip, her new "suitor." It turns out the real purpose of Everett's escape from prison was to prevent Penny's nuptials to Vernon.
Pete and Delmar ain't happy about that.
Our trio rescues Tommy from being lynched at a Ku Klux Klan rally. Then a political campaign event, our three convicts and Tommy wind up performing as the Soggy Bottom Boys and the crowd goes wild. Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Pappy O'Daniel, the incumbent candidate for governor endorses the Soggy Bottom Boys and grants them full pardons.
Nobody tells the sheriff who has been chasing our three hapless wanderers. He captures them and prepares to hang them on the spot. Thankfully God and a civic engineering project to create a lake intervene.
If you haven't read Homer's epic Greek poem The Odyssey, don't worry. Neither did the Cohen brothers. Apparently, the only person on set to have actually read The Odyssey was Tim Blake Nelson who played Delmar.
Tim Blake Nelson is a wonder. While most of the singing done by the Soggy Bottom Boys is lip synched, Nelson does his own singing on "In the Jailhouse Now".
O Brother, Where Art Thou? looks "hot". Digital color correction gives the film a sepia toned hue that makes everything look dry, dusty and hot.
As befits a production by Joel and Ethan Coen, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is quirky as hell with strange encounters with even stranger characters. Events unfold in an ethereal fever dream fashion.
George Clooney as Everett anchors the film with a constant stream of intellectual erudition and snappy patter.
The soundtrack is filled with period folk music, blue grass and gospel music.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a fun movie packed with great performances and very creative writing.
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