After watching No Country for Old Men, I was in a bit of a Coen brothers mood and thought to myself, why not tick another film off the watchlist and decided on The Big Lebowski. It’s a favourite with a couple of my friends and I also saw it featured in the documentary “Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films”.

Quite a different film to anything else I’ve seen the Coen brothers do. This is more a comedy of errors narrative, which is a proven formula you can’t go wrong with.

The plot revolves around Jeffrey Lebowski, better known as ‘The Dude’, who just wants the rug from his loungeroom to be replaced after an incident that occurred after being mistaken for a millionaire of the same name (who The Dude goes on to reference as ‘The Big Lebowski’). From here things go from bad to worse for The Dude as he is roped into wider family issues including a kidnapping plot, nihilists, and porn empire tycoons to name but a few.

These things however don’t stop The Dude from trying to live his life which consists of drinking white russians, smoking dope, and of course bowling. The situation is more an ever-growing inconvenience all stemming from that rug. After all, it did really tie the room together.

In typical comedy of errors style, you think that The Dude would be better off without his short-tempered, trigger-happy friend Walter, yet when this call is finally made, things still don’t go to plan. Perhaps the damage Walter had done already changed the course of fate for The Dude.

The best imagery of how things are faring for The Dude, is his car. As things progressively get worse, so does the state of the car.

For me the highlight of the film was Julianne Moore, who plays the daughter of The Big Lebowski and for lack of a better description is a wacky artist. The first time we meet her she is throwing paint onto a canvas from a moving overhead harness while naked. In a cast of oddball characters her performance is striking and memorable.

With so many fantastic and funny scenes a couple of favourites that stood out for me are when Walter (John Goodman) goes ballistic on a sports car with a crowbar repeatedly screaming “This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!”. This is second only to what is probably the best scene; the trip/dream sequence The Dude goes on after being drugged.

The dream sequence presents as a movie within the movie titled “Gutterballs”. It starts off presenting like a porno before turning into randomness, it’s very surreal. This sequence seems to be a perfect fit to summarise the vibe of the film and who The Dude is.

It would also be remiss of me not to mention Sam Elliot as The Stranger, the films narrator. The closing monologue he delivers is a fantastic note to send the film out on and good place to close this review on.

While very different to Fargo and No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski still has that Coen brothers feel to it and it’s difficult to think who else could have made this film work. The acting of the cast is the perfect balance of not taking itself too seriously but played straight resulting in a film which is very quotable and comedically done well.

It may not for everyone but it’s a cult classic for a reason. I’m happy that I got around to watching it and I think it’ll just get better after several more viewings.