Big Nothing was a little gem that I had actually heard nothing about, but saw the cover, and then saw David Schwimmer and Simon Pegg, and knowing about their current (at the time) collaboration on Run, Fatboy, Run, I decided to give this movie a rent one night. Best few bucks I had spent in a long time. I don’t want to give anything away to people who have not seen it yet, (but later in the blog I will be discussing the end of the film so turn away now if you want to watch the film first!) but suffice it to say, this film is one of the best and most clever little black comedies I have seen in recent years. A few quick words about it should make anyone want to see it (if the simple fact that Simon Pegg is in it doesn’t), but to sum it up a bit…porn, priests, septic tanks, axes in heads, solid acting, writing and directing, and a crying Jesus statue.
Now the reason I titled this blog …Big Troubles, is because while the movie is great and quite the little find, the end is giving me some troubles, so I figured I’d lay out my interpretation of the end of the movie with the hopes that someone else has either a similar take, or a completely different one.
BE WARNED! ** MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD **
Hopefully that was a big enough disclaimer to save my ass from complaints. Now if you are still reading you have either seen Big Nothing, or don’t care if you know what happens in the end, so if you are the latter, here is a quick catch-up. David Schwimmer’s character Charlie is suffering from a major neurological medical issue that causes him to lose his memory, so in order to combat this he memorizes little factoids, and then recites them all throughout the movie, mostly in times of stress. So my real struggle comes in the end, when Charlie asks Josie (Alice Eve), exactly what kind of poison it is he is about to drink, and upon hearing the answer he chugs the flask. I’ll be the first to admit that I am usually the most cynical, glass is half-empty kind of guy and I usually read the bleakest outcome possible into a film if there is room for interpretation, but for some reason I feel hope in the end of this film. It is my theory that Charlie knew exactly what kind of poison it was and the reason he was so ready some might even say eager, to drink it down was because one of those useless memorization facts was about this kind of poison, and he knew something about it. I can’t exactly say why, and there is nothing in the rest of the movie that alludes to his death or the idea that he lived, but I can’t stop thinking that he knew something we didn’t know, and that maybe, just maybe he did live through it.
I’ll thread this into the forum because I want to know other peoples takes on this, or if there are people out there that read this the same way I did, so please let me know.