The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 13 minutes
Directors: Ethan and Joel Coen

Quick Impressions:
I watched this movie at home because my mercurial three-year-old fell asleep much earlier than I expected, so I thought, “Why not?” Last year, I reviewed the Netflix original film Mudbound after screening it at home (my only option if I wanted to see it), and I could think of no reason not to do the same for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. After all, it was named one of the ten best films of the year by the National Board of Review. (As if you need a reason to watch a Coen Brothers’ movie! Their name is reason enough.)

I don’t feel right about reviewing a film unless I watch it in undisturbed silence, as I would in a theater. At our house, this is not easy to come by. I used to be able to beat everyone handily at the Last Person Awake Challenge until my little insomniac son arrived on the scene. But at rare moments, even he falls asleep. Realizing he’d miraculously drifted off early, I saw an opportunity to watch The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and I took it.

To be honest, despite the NBR endorsement, my expectations for the film were pretty low. The Oscar race is extremely competitive this year. (Well, I mean it’s always competitive, but this year every category is so ridiculously crowded.) And I haven’t heard any pundits yelling, “But you have to save room for this Netflix movie Buster Scruggs!”

The film is full of great performances by a seasoned cast, but I’m not expecting it to be much of an awards contender. (That’s no reason not to watch, though. Theatrical releases Inside Llewyn Davis and Hail Caesar! weren’t exactly Oscar darlings, but I really liked them both.)

To my surprise, Buster Scruggs far exceeded my expectations. (Sometimes I think I approach Netflix original films with undue suspicion, possibly because I’m sacrificing precious quiet time at home to watch them.  There’s a real opportunity cost.  I could be writing, reading.  And even with the volume relatively low, movies make noise, loud, child-wakening noise.)  At any rate, this gamble was worth it.  I found the film’s anthology structure surprisingly compelling, and with each new segment, I kept deciding, “Okay. This is the best one.”

In fact, even the first segment (which initially struck me as hard to embrace) now seems better after I’ve finished taking in the entire movie.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is not only quietly profound, but it’s also riotously entertaining. I have every intention of watching it again with the rest of my family this weekend. I think everyone will enjoy it. (Well, not the three-year-old, obviously, though maybe if I turn it on, he’ll get bored and go to sleep again.)  (I’m just kidding.)  (He never sleeps.)

The Good:
Even though I’m a bit of an Anglophile (with an MA in British literature to prove it), I absolutely love American short stories. In fact, I think nobody does short stories better than Americans. (Maybe Russians, but I can’t speak Russian, so for me, with my particular limitations, American short stories win.)  (I can probably sustain this prejudice by not excluding anything written in the Americas, so I’m drawing from the work of more than two continents’ worth of writers.)  (Also, I haven’t read much Asian or African literature, so I’m not really including those stories in my ridiculously sweeping claims.) So basically, I’m saying that Americans write better short stories than the British (who write better than everything else).  (But I wouldn’t put much stock in my opinions if I were you.  I seem shifty, maybe deranged.)

Anyway, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is so great because it’s presented as a collection of stories. (Literally, we see a physical book on the screen before and between segments, like in an old Disney movie.) And each portion of the film really does feel like an American short story you’d read in a collection (maybe something you once read in an anthology for an American lit class).

At first, I thought we were just watching macabre or uncanny stories about the Old West. But now that I’ve finished the film, I realize that each story is actually about death and how it comes at unlooked for, or, at least, uncomfortable moments. Reversal of fortune is a common theme here, as is the unexpected. Because the stories work even better as a whole than individually, I’d say the film is pretty brilliant, and I’m excited to watch it again with the rest of my family. As you watch, of course, you don’t notice that the segments work better together because you’re so focused on each individual tale as it’s happening. Don’t look away. Each story is over pretty quickly.

We get death in every segment, and a song to distract us in most. (In “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” the aural distraction is of a different sort.) Certainly this is a well crafted film, structurally strong. As it unfolds, it appears haphazard, but as the last segment concludes, we realize that the whole thing has been cohesive all along. For me, the ending shed additional light on the beginning and made me think of the middle as the middle, rather than just four unrelated shorts.

I personally found the opening short, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” intermittently delightful and bizarre. After watching it, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the rest of the film which seems weird now that I’ve seen the whole thing. In retrospect, what that first segment sets up seems crystal clear, but I didn’t see it that way until the final story clarified it for me.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs essentially demands a second viewing. I was watching intently in total silence with zero distractions, and I now realize that while I easily followed the action within each segment, I didn’t pay close enough attention to how the film was working as a whole until it ended. I don’t think you can fully appreciate The Ballad of Buster Scruggs for what it is until you watch it twice.

Maybe that does make Netflix an ideal viewing platform for this particular story. If I were trying to win awards, I would be more inclined to give my movie a traditional theatrical release, but maybe the Coen brothers are thinking more of art and less of glory. This film probably works better if audiences can easily watch it a second time. (Whether audiences will watch a second time is another story, though for my part, I intend to.)

The cast is teeming with famous, seasoned, heavy-hitting actors, and the cinematography is often breathtaking. For one thing, the physical landscape of the Old West is gorgeously romanticized. For another, we get the strong impression that we really are reading a book. (Just hours before watching the film, I was helping my daughter prepare for UIL art, and I couldn’t help but notice that just like in some of the paintings she’s studying, the landscape creates a natural frame in these carefully composed shots.

I didn’t notice the score at all, but I did have the volume down pretty low, an unfortunate side effect of not watching the movie in the theater. The movie does frequently feature central characters spontaneously bursting into song, though. In fact, you could consider the whole thing a musical. (The “Buster Scruggs” segment is definitely a musical. )

With this movie, it’s hard to follow my usual “Best Scene/Best Scene Visually/Best Action Sequence” format because The Ballad of Buster Scruggs gives us six individual (though thematically connected) sequences, like little mini-movies.

The second half of the film is stronger than the first by far. Well, actually, “stronger” may be the wrong word. Let’s call it more engaging, easier to watch, harder to stop watching. The first half is vaguely intriguing. The second half is truly captivating.

Let me make up new some new custom category headings that allow me to say something useful about this film.

Segment I’m Most Eager to See a Second Time:
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is quite weird. Tim Blake Nelson is delightful in the titular role, and I didn’t mind the tonal craziness, but I had a hard time connecting with this story emotionally. Just when I was getting used to Buster, everything changed, and I was left shaking my head. (That’s actually kind of deep, though.)  I’d enjoyed watching most of the segment, but as it ended, I wasn’t sure I got it and didn’t know if I liked it. Now that I’ve seen the entire movie, I think I understand what the first segment was trying to tell me, but I need to watch again to be sure.

Segment I Wished Lasted Longer:
True, part of the charm of “Near Algodones” is its whirlwind brevity, but I personally would have watched a feature length film about James Franco’s Cowboy character, and this is coming from someone who strongly dislikes James Franco (though admittedly, I enjoy disliking him so much that my feelings have almost come full circle into fetishistic fascination).

This ironic little tale is so brief (with such a great line at the end) that it almost feels like a well-told joke that’s somehow managed to sneak into an anthology of short stories.

Stephen Root is also extremely charming in his all-too-brief brief supporting role.

As I watched, I saw this second segment as an improvement over the first and was sorry when it ended.

Most Frustrating Segment:
“Meal Ticket” frustrated me immediately because I thought, “Why is the story Liam Neeson’s in more about someone else?” I got over that quickly, though.

Of all the stories in the film, this third one is probably the darkest and definitely the most ironic. I say that, then I think, “Is this scenario truly ironic, or merely sad?” I can make a case for situational irony by describing the events in a certain way, but I don’t want to give any spoilers and ruin the “fun.”

Here’s what makes this segment so frustrating, though. The very thing that makes the story so well done and hard hitting also makes it boring. The story works so well precisely because the movie audience begins to get bored and lose interest right along with the audience in the movie. And we think, “How can anyone be bored by such a wonderful recitation of some of the most stirring and beautiful works of Western literature, especially when delivered by such an unusual person?” And yet, we can see why audiences are growing bored because we are also growing bored. See the problem? In order to experience the true profundity of the situation, we must become bored.

So that’s not great. From an artistic standpoint, I’m tempted to call this the best segment in the movie, yet it is also the one I am least excited to watch again. It seems to last forever. It’s quite repetitive (by design).

Here is something truly astonishing, though. That remarkable orator featured in this portion? That’s Harry Melling, Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies.

Most Oscar-Worthy Segment:
Tom Waits is already in my good graces this year for telling that wonderful story in The Old Man and the Gun to rival Phoebe Cates in Gremlins.

If any actor deserves an Oscar nomination for this film, it’s Waits. (I don’t think he’ll get one, mind you, but if you ask me, he’s the conspicuous standout.) In “All Gold Canyon” he spends 90 percent of the time just sifting pans of grime, talking to himself (like normal people do when they’re alone), and yet the entire sequence is riveting.

This has got to be the most satisfying sequence in the film, and one of the only short stories that offers any kind of positive…anything. (Of course, there’s a more negative reading of these events, too.)

This might be my favorite segment, and Tom Waits carries the entire thing alone. Bravo to him.

Most Engrossing Segment:
If “All Gold Canyon” isn’t my favorite, then “The Gal Who Got Rattled” is. I truly can’t decide. For the first half of the film, I kept having stray thoughts like, “How long is this movie again? How long has it been? Will my son wake up? Is he actually just taking a crazy late nap? Is that chicken really as talented as it seems?  It had better be.”

To me, “The Gal Who Got Rattled” is the most captivating part of the entire movie. It feels longer than the other segments, but it still wasn’t long enough for me. I got genuinely invested in the characters. I’m usually not particularly drawn to romance novels, but there was something so endearingly practical about this pair. I would have watched this story forever, and I loved the ending. For me, the biggest moment of suspense came well before the end. I can’t talk about this story in any more detail without giving spoilers, but I truly loved it and was especially charmed by Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck. I also really like what’s done with the Grainger Hines character. Actually, you know what? This story was my favorite. I’m sure.

Segment My Husband Saw:
Just before 1:30, my husband appeared and watched the final story of the movie with me. He loved “The Mortal Remains” and is eager to watch the rest of the film now.  This last segment is very talky, but he loved what it had to say.  (He’s a big fan of the American short story, too.)

I truly appreciated “The Mortal Remains” because it helped me to understand so much of what had come before. Plus, I got a kick out of seeing Tyne Daly.  Who doesn’t love Tyne Daly?  The always great Brendan Gleeson and Saul Rubinek are also in this segment which serves as the perfect finale to the film.

The Negatives:
Tonally, the first sequence, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is so odd. At first I thought, “Hmmm…” Then I thought, “Ohhhh okay. This guy is not what I thought. This is more clever than I realized.” But then I thought, “Hmmmmmmmm…This is pretty weird, though….”

It’s a very strange way to begin, and honestly, it might be off-putting to some viewers. In perfect honesty, I approached this film thinking, “Hey, a Coen brothers movie! I will watch it!” I’m the type who will watch anything by the Coen brothers. The name means something. They deliver an extremely consistent product. I’m not saying that their films are all alike. Far from it! But–let me just go ahead and be incredibly blunt about this–all their work is good. So I’ll hang in there no matter what.

But here’s the problem with making a film for Netflix. If the first few minutes seem really weird, some people might just decide, “Yeah…no,” and click around a while until they find something else. This takes almost no effort, and you lose nothing.

If you walk out of a film after the first ten minutes in the theater, the price of your ticket won’t be refunded unless you’re willing to get into a stressful conversation with a manager (and even then still probably not).

To be perfectly frank, my biggest concern about rewatching this film is that my parents might get bored and leave before we get to the really good part. This is especially bothersome since I’ve recently tricked them into watching both Phantom Thread and First Reformed. At this point, they might be getting wary of my schemes (and justifiably so).

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a good, possibly even great film. But you have to watch to the end before you’ll truly understand that (or, at least, I did). And when a movie on Netflix hits a slow spot, what incentive does the audience have to keep watching?