Burn After Reading

(USA/Great Britain/France, 2008, 94 minutes)

After being dismissed from his post, an alcoholic CIA analyst decides to write a tell-all memoir whose draft falls into the hands of an airheaded gym instructor and a lonely spinster obsessed with plastic surgery. Scathing screwball satire of stupidity and blind ambition done with its authors' usual clinical style and deadpan, dry wit; not to everyone's taste, but a better comedy than the Coen's previous attempts at the genre.

Focus Features presents, in association with Studiocanal and Relativity Media, a Working Title production. Starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins; and Brad Pitt. Directed, produced, written and edited (under the alias Roderick Jaynes) by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; music by Carter Burwell; director of photography (DeLuxe), Emmanuel Lubezki; production designer, Jess Gonchor; costume designer, Mary Zophres.