Hello everyone
There are films that I watch and rewatch, and then rewatch again. And then…you get the idea.
One of those movies is The Big Lebowski. If you haven’t seen it, where the heck have you been since 1998?!? Go and watch it now. And if you’ve already seen it, then you should go and watch it again, several times…
Meet the Lebowskis
Jeff Bridges plays the Dude, Jeffrey Lebowski.
The Dude is a Lebowski, but not the Big Lebowski of the title. He is a middle-aged slacker with no real work history. Two activities fill his world: taking drugs and bowling.
The story begins with a mistaken identity. The Dude is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, the Big Lebowski of the title, played by David Huddleston. Where the Dude is a penniless slacker, the Big Lebowski is a millionaire.
When the Big Lebowski’s wife is kidnapped, he engages the Dude as the bag man to make the exchange.
The Movie…
Having been drawn into the Big Lebowski’s world, we have a movie where the classic noir tropes are turned on their head. The gumshoe is not some Humphrey Bogart-esque character, but rather an oaf…albeit an appealing oaf who is nonetheless highly effective in finding the root of the crime.
The plot has a flavor of a Raymond Chandler story taking elements from The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. However, the plot details matter less in this movie—while there’s a good story, The Big Lebowski is worth watching time and again because it’s laugh out loud funny.
Characters We Laugh With
For many of the characters, life hasn’t turned out as they may have hoped. But these are not tragic individuals—like the Dude they accept their situation and carry on with their lives.
On the face of it, the Dude is a ridiculous character, but he has a sense of right and wrong—even if he’s too lazy to do the right thing—so we laugh with him and we laugh at the situations he finds himself in. And we laugh at his put-downs—one-liners delivered so well by Bridges.
Characters We Laugh At
While we have sympathy for most of the characters, there are many who we laugh at. Beyond the nihilists and the thugs, there are two main characters we laugh at:
- Walter Sobchak played by John Goodman is a Vietnam veteran and Vietnam obsessive. His pomposity is frequently pricked by the Dude.
- The Big Lebowski is (rightly) infantilized by his daughter Maude (played by Julianne Moore). He is a vain man who is found out by the Dude—a man whose intelligence he underestimates, but more importantly, a man with no vanity.
Go Watch
The Big Lebowski is available on Netflix. Watch it for the humor. Watch it for the performances. Watch it for the story. And watch it for the Busby Berkeley-esque ten pin bowling themed number.
If you’re still unsure, then read the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
And if you’ve seen it before, you’ll agree with me that you should watch it again.
Until July
I’ll be back in your inbox in July.
Until then.
All the best
Simon