The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

I never feel comfortable making Best Films of the Year lists. I love reading those of other critics, but my movie watching habits are so uneven and idiosyncratic sometimes, I don’t often feel I’ve seen enough films to make a fair, informed list. However, while I can’t tell you the ten best films released this year, I can tell you about the one best film I’ve seen this year, and it comes from both a likely and an unlikely source. 

 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was written, produced, directed, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, two of America’s most talented filmmakers. So the fact that their latest film is wonderful is no surprise. What is surprising is that despite a very limited theatrical release that began on November 9^th, this newest offering from the makers of Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit was released primarily on Netflix. The streaming giant has been backing dump trucks full of money up to the houses of big name filmmakers like Martin Scorcese and Guillermo Del Toro for a couple of years now, trying to get their mainstream credibility to add a sheen to Netflix’s sometimes lackluster original programming. So far, these bigger projects have been hit or miss, but with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Netflix has its first bona fide great film on its hands. (Roma is the second.)

The film is an anthology, a collection of six shorter films that are linked on setting and theme. As some of their best films are, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a western, set somewhere between the end of the Civil War and the end of the 19^th century in the majestic, beautiful, brutal American west. Each vignette shares the Coen brothers’ trademark dialogue – original, strangely formal, utterly polite even in the face of violence. They also share the filmmakers bleak outlook on life – absurdity and death are regular partners, profound violence can strike at any moment, death comes for us all and when it does, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

It’s rare that anthology films work. All too often, they are uneven. But in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, each piece is a polished jewel. They vary in tone and cast, but each one is perfect all on its own.

While there isn’t a weak section at all, there are a couple that stand out.

In “Meal Ticket,” Liam Neeson plays a traveling impresario who carts around a performer billed as The Wingless Thrush, an armless, legless man who recites poetry, the Bible, and the Gettysburg Address. Neeson’s character takes care of the Thrush’s needs, feeding and cleaning him and setting him up for performances as they travel from one Rocky Mountain mining town to another. Except for the Thrush’s orations, the film is almost entirely silent, and it’s that quiet and stillness that draws the viewer in, making you wonder what’s going to happen at the end of the story’s long, slow burning fuse.

“The Gal Who Got Rattled” is my favorite section of the six. It features the very best of the Coens’ courtly, unlikely dialogue; the closest the filmmakers get to making a love story; and an ending so bleak and heartbreaking, it’s got me thinking about it weeks later. As the gal of the title, Zoe Kazan plays one of only a couple of female characters in the whole film and practically walks away with the whole thing. It takes some of the western genre’s most familiar tropes and makes them fresh, visceral, and devastating.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is violent, odd, poetic, and perfect. Like all great art, it stays with you long after its over and invites you to come back for more. It is one of the very best films of 2018, and lucky for us all, it is inexplicably streaming on Netflix for your enjoyment.