Some individual scenes in 'Barton Fink (1991)' are great, emphasising the Coen's philosophy that the scene takes precedent over the story, and there's a chunk just after the halfway point where things really pick up steam and a proper 'plot' seems to be getting underway - until the film just ends without any real satisfying resolution, that is. For most of the run-time, though, this off-kilter 'comedy'-drama lacks drive and instead meanders around through ponderously aloof satirical sequences in which the protagonist pretentiously proposes that his writing must come from a source of pain and how that's more important than critical acclaim or audience acceptance. It's frustrating that there seems to be some hints of a sub-layer to the narrative, indications that perhaps something supernatural is going on beneath the surface or that we're going to get a big 'reveal' in the third act that makes sense of some of the stranger moments (or at least cements the necessity of their inclusion), but though there is a 'twist' of sorts that slips a slice of sinister into the otherwise lukewarm narrative, these hints and this plot point peel away to surmount to nothing and, as such, seem like hollow inclusions only added to infuse a false sense of depth to a hopelessly shallow narrative. This seemingly indicates that the Coens themselves fell victim to the writer's block that consistently aisles their bespectacled creation. 6/10