Raising Arizona
1987 · Directed by Joel Coen
Original language: English
- comedy
- crime
The story
When a childless couple—an ex-con and an ex-cop—take one of a wealthy family’s quintuplets to raise as their own, their lives grow more complicated than anticipated.
What it’s like
Hyper-kinetic yet warmly lit, with saturated desert daylight pouring over motel rooms, a supermarket's fluorescent aisles, and sun-bleached Arizona scrub. The Coens' camera darts in whip pans, dollying zooms and swooping Steadicam tracks, then lands on static, symmetrical compositions when a character needs to sit still. Carter Burwell's score mixes banjo twang, brassy cartoon stingers and sudden silence, and the dialogue rattles along in heightened, bulging cadences. The vibe is manic and affectionate, a cartoon-slapstick romp with a soft heart underneath, best for a lazy afternoon, a comfort rewatch, or a night in with friends who like their comedy loud and odd. Pacing is brisk and escalating, with each scene piling a new mishap on the last. The emotional register runs from amused to melodramatic, following an ex-con and an ex-cop who want a family badly and bungle their way toward one. Violence is frequent but cartoonish: bungled robberies, chases, a few gunshots and bodily knocks, with no gore and no sexual content. It suits viewers who enjoy absurd, satirical screwball comedy and do not mind broad, physical cartoonishness.
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