Review

The Coen brothers have manufactured a mesmerizing parable on the death of innocence and the perversion of artistic integrity in the face of gross crudity and greed. Turturro is terrific as the title character, Barton Fink, an acclaimed, socially conscious New York playwright (styled after Clifford Odets) who is lured by Hollywood's false hope. While being reduced to another cog in the studio machine, he develops a strained camaraderie with Goodman, the next-door neighbor in his steam-bath hotel - it's a relationship which comes to define his California experience. Turturro and Goodman bring total credibility to otherwise fantastical characters in an exaggerated, surreal world of peeling wallpaper and oddly threatening drainpipes.