Acting was super (Frances McDormand was great as usual; Tony Shalhoub was almost unrecognizable in his best role ever as a slick lawyer); cinematography was mesmerizing; toying with the noir genre while updating some of its conventions was effective. So what's it all about?
What stayed with me most is the notion that silence within marriage is a deadly force. Thornton's character, Ed, is taciturn, apparently one-dimensional; he relates how his wife Doris proposed marriage after a few dates because she wasn't going to learn much more about him than she already knew, and he concedes that's true. So you've got a married couple believing they know everything about one another, therefore shutting down lines of communication, eventually leading to a series of miscommunications and tragedy.
Ed's initial plan to get $10,000 to invest in a dry-cleaning business hinges on his (apparently correct) belief that Doris is sleeping with her boss, James Gandolfini; rather than confront her he starts a stealth blackmailing campaign to extort the money from Gandolfini. Gandolfini miscalculates the source of the blackmail note, confides in Ed, and kills the man he thinks is responsible; eventually all the major characters end up accused of and paying for crimes they didn't commit, although none of them are exactly innocent.
There are a few overt Christian references: Ed commenting that he and Doris attend church once a week -- for Bingo -- and that he doubts Doris believes in an afterlife; as Ed stares at a crucifix he says he feels a sense of peace and comfort in church; before he's executed, he prays he'll be reunited with Doris in a place where there'll be some means of communication to say what he couldn't say on earth.
The most honest moment between the couple comes when Ed appears to be lying in order to save Doris from being convicted of a murder she didn't commit; there's a moment of connection between Thornton and McDormand that's so well-suited to both actors' understatedness. Another resonant moment is at a relative's wedding, when a drunken McDormand keeps saying to the bride, "It's (marriage) so g--damn wonderful" over and over.
Much about the movie was over my head; as usual, the Coens' quirky collection of characters and quips is greatly entertaining, but I've gotta say the subplot with Scarlett Johannson as a teen-age pianist lost me, as did the very strange scene involving Gandolfini's wide-eyed widow who thinks her husband was abducted and probed by aliens (very entertaining scene, still).
Then there's a question directed at Ed by two different characters -- "What kind of man are you?" Is the idea that even Ed doesn't know what kind of man he is? Or that he's known all along, and his Mr. Cellophane act is just an act?
This is a disjointed post, I know, but any fellow A&F'ers who can weigh in with some thoughtful interpretation will be much admired.