Coen Brothers' film noir

Neo-noir is an overused adjective in modern cinema. It's used to broadly encompass any slickly produced film with an attempted gritty atmosphere and a twisting plot that traps and undoes its usually unflappable protagonists. And The Man Who Wasn't There certainly has enough of the aforementioned elements to qualify as neo-noir to modern audiences. But like with their last film O Brother, Where Art Thou, influenced by the Odyssey and Preston Sturges, the Coen Brothers …

…the hard-boiled voiceover common to most noir films is subverted in use as a window into Ed's existential dread. The protagonists and Ed are both caught in a seamy narrative of deceit and sin, but Ed differs in that the major trap he's been ensnared in is his own existence. So in the end, Ed, unlike his forbearers, isn't out to show that good can defeat evil, but rather that his existence can defeat inconsequence.