He’s not exactly the Invisible Man, but he knows how to disappear better than anybody. His crooked grin masks untold layers of insecurity and self-doubt. Those who employ him utilize his weaknesses to increase their strengths. The man’s loss is his boss’s gain. And though his eye is hopelessly caught on his pretty female co-worker, he wouldn’t dream of admiring her out of anything other than his peripheral vision. “Why can’t I ever fall in love with someone nice like you?” she might ask him. His inevitable response would reek of rueful finality: “Yeah. Well—that’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.” All these attributes may seemingly pertain exclusively to C.C. Baxter, the protagonist of Billy Wilder’s legendary 1960 Oscar-winner The Apartment. Yet the above characteristics apply equally to Bernie Lootz, the hero of Wayne Kramer’s 2003 directorial debut, The Cooler. Released over four decades after Wilder’s classic, Kramer’s film emerged as a similar study of how human frailties romantically entangle two damaged souls in ways decidedly comedic, but not always laugh-worthy.
Shot in just three weeks, primarily within the remodeled Reno Hotel Casino, The Golden Phoenix, the film’s production was brisk and relatively uneventful. [Internet Movie Database (2)] Director Kramer allowed his established cast to possess a certain level of creative freedom, while reining them in whenever they veered too far from his artistic vision. The film’s leading man, William H. Macy, affectionately referred to Kramer as “one tenacious son of a bitch,” [IndieWire] while his co-stars Maria Bello and Ron Livingston agreed that their director was “very secure” on set. “I think he realized the value of what he had in a couple of guys like Alec Baldwin and Maria Bello,” said Livingston. [Ign] Yet the real drama behind the scenes occurred within the minds of the film’s performers. The principal actors infused their characters with their own frailties.
Macy had made a career out of playing ‘lovable losers’ in acclaimed films such as Fargo (1996) and Magnolia (1999). “I had sort of sworn off losers and then I read the script [for The Cooler] and I thought, ‘This is hysterical.’ There are no jokes in it, but the movie is very funny,” admitted Macy. [IndieWire] As an unlucky man hired to metaphysically jinx gamblers at a Reno casino, Macy was allowed to playfully parody his earlier work, allowing him to have a comfortable onscreen charisma. Yet the role also provided the actor with a formidable challenge: it would be Macy’s first-ever romantic lead. While preparing to do a nude sex scene with his love interest, played by Bello, he decided to go to a restaurant with the actress a couple weeks prior. “I told her how scared I was, and she told me how scared she was,” said Macy. [IndieWire]
Bello remembers staying up nights with Macy, hanging out and discussing the next day’s scenes. “There was a real comfort from the moment we met,” said Bello, “[Macy] made me feel very at ease and free to express myself in any way, and I think that really shows.” [Star Chat] After playing shallow parts in films like Coyote Ugly (2000), Bello was eager to challenge herself as an actress, and fought for the role of Natalie, a conflicted cocktail waitress at Macy’s casino, as well as a failed mother. “There were so many pieces of me that I’ve not been able to express fully on the screen because it’s not written on the page,” Bello said. [Star Chat] Thus, the passion Macy and Bello felt for the project, coupled with the comfort they felt worked together, allowed the acting duo to thoroughly, if nervously, embrace their explicit lovemaking scenes.
Alec Baldwin delivered an Oscar-nominated performance as Shelley, the casino boss who secretly hires Bello to woo Macy, in order to keep his ‘cooler’ from leaving the casino. His plan backfires when Bello falls in love with Macy, thus breaking his ‘cooler’s’ bad-luck karma. Yet the palpable frustration and anger in his onscreen performance stemmed from off-screen occurrences. He was fresh off his divorce from actress Kin Basinger, and on the day before he was scheduled to shoot a fiery confrontation scene between him and Bello, the National Enquirer ran a story accusing him of beating up his ex-wife. Director Kramer professed that he hadn’t expected Baldwin to show up on the set that day, yet the actor came and did the scene, fueling his performance with his raw feelings of pain and outrage. [Kramer] When Baldwin hits Bello in the face, the expression of instant regret and self-loathing on his face is entirely genuine and scarily believable. Hence, Baldwin’s frailties are acquired by his character.
The Cooler was released on November 26th, 2003, after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival that January. Anti-American sentiment had been sweeping the rest of the world that year, as U.S. President George W. Bush launched war against Iraq on March 19th, 2003. America was reeling from its involvement in a new war, as well as the political divisiveness of its citizens. Just six days prior to the film’s release, a massive anti-Bush protest was held in London. [World Atlas] Cinema was used by American audiences as a means to escape the terror and anger of the present day. Thus, during the first three winters following the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Lord of the Rings trilogy raked in record numbers at the box office, sending viewers on a classic fantastical journey loaded with Biblical archetypes. The trilogy’s final installment, The Return of the King, dominated the number one box office slot after being released in December 2003. It would go on to win eleven Oscars, including Best Picture.
In comparison, The Cooler didn’t really have much of a chance in finding an audience. Given a very limited release, the film bowed out with a gross estimated at $8.3 million. [Internet Movie Database (1)] But more importantly, the film’s depiction of damaged characters defined by their wounds would have perhaps proved too downbeat for mainstream appeal in post-9/11 America. The Bernie character reflects the nation’s mental state during the period. America was engaged in a war that was shunned not only by half the country, but by the majority of other nations across the globe. The country was morally conflicted about its engagement in Iraq, and yet was following government orders all the same. Similarly, Bernie is following the orders of his corrupt boss Shelley, by utilizing his bad karma to keep casino players from winning big bucks. It’s a morally reprehensible job, but the well-behaved Bernie performs it like a good employee (or citizen). America sure felt like a loser in 2003, and Bernie is its mirror-image.
These parallels may seem as far-fetched as the film’s plot, but thematically, they really do make sense. The film’s anti-war sentiment is evidenced in the blinding optimism of its message: that ‘love conquers all.’ After Bernie’s karma is transformed when finding true love with Natalie, Shelley scolds Bernie like a neglected army recruiter. “What is happening to you?” Shelley exclaims, but Bernie can only smile and bob his head. He’s in love, and that jubilant emotion has strengthened him as a person, making him unwilling to bow down to the amoral demands of his now-powerless boss. Shelley’s nostalgic preference for the old-time casinos thus labels him as a man from another era, whose policies and existence are headed toward extinction. His character becomes a symbol for the Bush Administration and its push for a war many argued to be outdated, immoral and unnecessary. In true anti-establishment form, the film offers Shelley his just desserts, destroying him as well as his beloved casinos, which are shown being demolished under the end credit scroll.
Where exactly The Cooler exists within the annals of film history remains difficult to peg. Some historians may argue that the movie is a product of the “smart film” movement, which emerged in the 1990’s as a cynical type of film often accused for being nihilistic. These films—which include those by directors like Todd Solondz, Quentin Tarantino, and frequent Macy-collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson—set forth the age of irony by objectively depicting shocking events. According to Northwestern University professor Jeffrey Sconce, these films were characterized by elements such as, “a related thematic interest in random fate, [as well as] a focus on the white, middle-class family as a crucible of miscommunication and emotional dysfunction.” [Hammond 432] While The Cooler includes both of these elements—the character’s fates are routinely determined by luck, and the principal protagonists are failed middle-class parents—the film is anything but nihilistic. Described by Kramer as a “gritty fantasy,” [Kramer] the film is blatantly emotional and romantic, while using luck to both reward deserving characters and punish evildoers (most obviously during the final moments, when a random drunk driver saves the protagonists’ lives). The film even has elements of magical realism, such as Macy’s luck increases. In the style of a fantasy, Macy’s baggy suit becomes tailor-made, his clothes brighten, and the light increases around him.
Most notably, The Cooler blends social satire with a neurotic romance, and is therefore the mirror-image of The Apartment. Even when comparing the film’s principal trio of actors, the results are near-identical. Both Macy and Jack Lemmon were celebrated for playing plucky everymen; both Bello and Shirley MacLaine were spunky newcomers on the brink of stardom; both Baldwin and Fred MacMurray were predominantly comedic actors not well-known for their dramatic chops. Though both films are often labeled as romantic comedies, they deal with deathly serious topics. As Macy noted earlier, the film doesn’t offer laughs with easy gags. Every bit of the comedy and romance stems from not from a given character’s action, but how the character goes about performing a given action. In a nutshell, The Apartment and The Cooler are strikingly similar in their depictions of sexuality, business and wounded characters.
Wilder has long been championed for bringing sexual transgression into American cinema. Upon initial release, The Apartment was criticized in various publications for its “tasteless” and “immoral” plot about a man who works up his company’s food chain by letting executives use his apartment for trysts. [Diamond xiii] As Wilder took advantage of the loosening screen censorship by normalizing sexual content, Kramer similarly pushed the MPAA’s limit on sexual frankness. The Cooler’s sex scenes were devoid of any Hollywood fantasy, and instead depicted the sexual act with realism. When the rating system threatened the film with an NC-17 rating, for a brief shot of Maria Bello’s public hair, Kramer was forced to edit it out. [Kramer]
Both films also point a satirical eye at corrupt business practices. Wilder was attracted to the idea of a man lending his apartment not out of friendship, but as “a career move.” [Diamond vii] Kramer’s film depicts a man lending his bad fortune to a casino boss, who can use it to manipulate the fortune of others. Both of these men’s misfortunes (Lemon’s loneliness, Macy’s bad luck) are exploited for their boss’s personal gain, which is negated once the men fall in love. Yet while The Apartment directly casts corporate structure as the villain of the piece, The Cooler’s old-fashioned villain Shelley even finds himself victimized by contemporary corporate strategists, embodied by Larry (Ron Livingston). This makes The Cooler’s conflict decidedly more complex.
The key similarity of the films is how the characters are defined by their wounds. The love interest (MacLaine/Bello) is seen by men only as a sexual object, and hungers to have a loving relationship. She gets it with the protagonist (Lemmon/Macy), an insecure man with a clumsy yet pure heart. Yet the relationship is threatened by their villainous boss (MacMurray/Baldwin), whose corruption and heartlessness has alienated him from all human contact. He therefore emerges as the film’s loneliest character. Since these wounds are treated realistically, the films end on a note of hopefulness, instead of offering a tidy happy ending. While Lemmon and MacLaine’s relationship remains uncertain, Macy and Bello are obviously in love—though back in Reno, the equally corrupt Livingston takes Baldwin’s place, while ominously promising a “bright future.”
In the final analysis, The Cooler is truly a romantic comedy built out of human frailties. The insecurities and frustrations of its cast were injected into their performances. Historically, the film expressed the societal frailties of a conflicted country at war. And of course, The Cooler’s wounded characters mirror the people who inhabit Wilder’s Apartment. To paraphrase the final line of Wilder’s immortal script: “And that’s about it. Paper-wise.”
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