This is another cultural touchstone that I’ve somehow missed out on and not knowing anything about it just gets embarrassing. It is of course always a pleasure to watch a Coen brothers, even the ones that don’t particularly resonate with me, and this one features a crazily large cast of name actors and a really fun attitude. I didn’t like the familiar plot of chasing a briefcase of money as the MacGuffin at all but I then realized it isn’t meant to matter at all and then I loved the film all the more for it

.Jeffery Lebowski is an unemployed slacker who prefers to be called the Dude and spends his time hanging out in a bowling alley with his friends. One night a pair of thugs barge into his home demanding repayment of a debt owed by a wife named Bunny. But the Dude is unmarried and the thugs soon realize that they have confused him with a rich man by the same name, but not before urinating on his prized rug. Encouraged by his friends, the Dude goes to the mansion of the other Lebowski and demands restitution for the rug. He is thrown out but takes a rug from the house anyway and meets with Bunny, the rich man’s trophy wife. Later he is told that Bunny has been kidnapped and they want him to bring the ransom money in a briefcase to the kidnappers in return for a fee. The Dude brings along his best friend, Vietnam War veteran Walter Sobchak who insists that Bunny must be working with the kidnappers herself and wants to give them a bag full of his underwear so that they can keep the ransom money for themselves. and that is just the beginning of their misadventures.

The main plot involving many different parties chasing after the ransom money is off-putting given how often the Coen brothers have used it before but the key to appreciating this film is realizing that it doesn’t matter at all. The plot is just a narrative device to introduce a succession of weird characters and their side stories. Maude, Big Lebowski’s daughter with his first wife for example is an avant-garde artist who makes art her nude body; the alleged kidnappers are a group of Germans nihilists who released on musical album and have been struggling to make money; the thugs were sent by a rich pornography tycoon who had previously worked with Bunny and so on. But at the heart of it all is of course the Dude himself and Walter. The characters are seemingly polar opposites with the Dude being a lazy, easy-going bum who drinks and does drugs while Walter is strait-laced, prone to profanity and violence and insists on strict discipline. Yet they are friends. Though the film invites you to sympathize with the Dude and feel frustrated by Walter, when the chips come down, it is Walter who has his back and you can see how strong their friendship is.

True to how this is a film that is all about stopping to smell the roses, the attention to detail and production quality of all kinds of small moments is just astounding. It positively luxuriates in evoking the atmosphere of the bowling alley and every character has a unique musical signature. The Coen brothers let their imaginations run wild with the Dude’s drug trips as well as the sheer variety of characters that the Dude runs across, many of them apparently inspired by real people. It strikes me that this film is actually a really good record of the place and the era it is set and it is no wonder that this has gone on to become a cult classic. No one cares about the main plot and arguably no one in the film even cares about bowling with the exception of the character Jesus. Notice how Walter and the Dude hang out all the time in the bowling alley but we never see either of them actually bowling. It’s about socializing and enjoying one another’s company.

I’ve written before that I’m not a fan of films that are about far out drug trips but I’m still entertained by the relationship between the Dude and Walter and impressed by the gorgeousness of the shots here. There’s also the meta quality of the plot being about a standard MacGuffin chase that doesn’t matter at all, which makes for a philosophical statement in of itself. This really is film that lives up to its reputation and convinces me that every single one of the Coen brothers’ films is worth watching.