Five stars?
Don't believe the hype
If ever a film was garlanded in undeserved praise, in my opinion, it's Brick, released on DVD next Friday. A stylish debut from Rian Johnson, you can see what he was driving at - a film noir in the style of The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon except transplanted to a modern 21st-century California high school. And he has a real photographer's eye for suburban vistas in the early evening. Brick looks very nice, in an indie kind of way - bleak and blue and desolate and apparently devoid of people most of the time - and it's framed beautifully. But it's all surface. It's all conceit. There's a whodunit here, as the boy from Third Rock From The Sun tries to find out where his ex-girlfriend, the pregnant girl from Lost, is. This means he has to hang out with a load of drug dealers, the leader of whom carries a cane and was the little boy in Witness who did the witnessing. They speak in a weird vernacular ("Who's she eating lunch with these days?") and it's all deliberately obtuse rather than actually complicated, and because the whole thing is delivered at the same pace, in the same deadpan tone, all their voices roll into one long drawl. It's impossible to care about anybody once the body turns up in the storm drain. Third Rock From The Sun bloke doesn't seem that bothered, so why should we?
At the end of the day, this is the kind of film that gives "indie" a bad name. It fancies itself. It knows how to pose. And I wouldn't have taken against it so violently if the DVD box wasn't so plastered in plaudits. Five stars in The Independent! Five stars in Total Film! Four stars in Empire! Are film critics so starved of decent films they fall at the feet of anything that doesn't star Will Ferrell or J-Lo?
I say: beware. Worth a look, but keep your expectations low.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 3:15 PM
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13 Comments:
"They speak in a weird vernacular"-
I read the feature in Total Film about all the new slang that they have made up for this film and, although the reviews persuaded me that it looked excellent, I was worried that not knowing what the hell the characters were talking about would spoil my enjoyment of the film! Although you mentioned it as though it was a bad thing, did this hinder your understanding (or simply effect how free flowing the film was) of the film, Andrew?
Superb film; absorbing and original. Unlike the brain dead Sopranos.
A bit of a difference of opinion there! Do you mean that The Sopranos has become brain dead, or started out brain dead? It's an important distinction, Dave.
Couldn't agree with you more Andrew. Brick is overhyped guff. Probably the most arch, style-over-content piece of tat since the godawful "Me You And Everyone We Know". I wanted to take a brick to all of them.
I was pretty positive about 'Brick' at the time:
"During the screening of Brick I attended, a man sitting across the isle from me sat opening and shutting his oyster-shaped mobile phone every few seconds. He had a slightly fierce look in his eyes so I didn't ask him to stop -- I don't know what the other nine people in the auditorium thought. After a while it really broke my concentration, which is a shame because Brick is the kind of film which demands your attention.
"Described in the lazy press as this year's Donnie Darko, Brick transplants the tropes of a hard boiled noir mystery thriller into a high school setting, infrusing it with language in the style of Anthony Burgess. The effect is akin to wating Reality Bites or My So-Called Life with the dialogue transplanted in from Bugsy Malone without the songs. It's odd and incongruous, but as the story unravels around teenage detective Brendan you can't help but be enthralled. It helps that the plotting isn't typical high school fare, doing for the murder mystery what Election did for politics, but totally free of useless exposition. If something is revealed about a character, it is important. There are few red herrings.
"Clarity is helped by the brilliantly measured performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, totally unrecognisable from his turn as an alien in tv's 3rd Rock From The Sun. Peter Parker without the spider-powers, he's channeling the souls of both Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford, an imprenitrable wall of placidity in the face of insurmountable odds, convincingly getting straight back up again whenever he's knocked down. The rest of the cast, a sea of unknowns (with one notable spoilery exception) are equally amazing, with few weak links despite the sometimes obtuse dialogue. Expect Nora Zehetner as femme fatale Laura, to gain a Rachel McAdams style cult following.
One of the dangers of this kind of picture is that the audience requires a peculiar film literacy in order to gain full enjoyment. Thankfully, writer/director Rian Johnson keeps the audience entertained with meticulous photography and editing, with unexpectedly funny set pieces and slapstick within the generally sober texture. If there's any criticism it's that sometimes the style decends slightly too far into its archer sensibilities but it's to Johnson's credit that he keeps faith with his concept and isn't distracted into providing a teen movie cliche in the climax. Engrossing."
A fine review, Stuart. For me, as you know, style tipped content, but you're right, the lazy comparisons to Donnie Darko didn't help. They fooled me! Would you have given it five stars?
I really enjoyed Brick, but then again i like 'quirk' (Thumbsucker and Me You and Everyone We Know are two of my recent favs). I was really engrossed in it, and loved its world.
The friend I saw it with had exactly the same response as you Andrew and I could see where she was coming from. But I can see lots of my film studies students making it ther 'favourite recent film' when term starts next month (although maybe thats a not a positive trait, seeing as I have yet to get many of them past 'Tarantino/Peter jackson/the Matrix rocks!').
I think JGL was particularly good, there was a point the film, compounded by his fabulous performance in Mysterious Skin when i suddenly thought 'wow, he's fantastic'. Is this the same boy from my fav '10 Things'!
I do think many films suffer from the Donnie Darko allusion, its become a catch-all marketing term form 'indie teen drama'. I bought Chumbscrubber from America as it looked promising (Jamie Bell, Allison Janney, Ralph Fiennes) to find a shittily pretentious 'Kids are unhappy and do bad things in suburbia whilst their parents dont care' Donnie-Darko-wannabe. I had a similar reaction to you had with Brick and violently ripped it out of the DVD player and put it straight onto ebay to wash the taste from my mouth.
Andrew -- I might have given it *** (and a half if that's possible) -- something worth watching but not that I'd particularly want to watch again or buy on dvd.
Having just finished a film degree, I can imagine that there are academics spinning out essays on all aspects of this film as we speak. I'm sure that someone somewhere is already beavering away at an essay comparing its treatment of genre to 'Blue Velvet' and the aformentioned.
The difference between this and M&Y&EWK seems to be that there Miranda July was simply making the kind of film she felt she could make whereas 'Brick' looks like the work of someone who is working within a particular mode and set of rules. I'd imagine Rian Johnson's next film will be something conventional and in the Hollywood mode now that he's got his calling card out of the way. He's less of a Wes Anderson and more of a Chris Nolan.
I completely agree with Faye. I liked Brick, and I liked Me And You And Everyone We Know (despite its flaws). From JGL's acting I felt compelled to investigate him further (I never watched Third Rock From The Sun). And Mysterious Skin, now that is phenomenal. And... I've never seen Donnie Darko. Should I?
elmsyrup -- yes definitely and I'd recommend The Director's Cut as your way in -- I saw that first and I really felt like it was a much more superior film and clearer in intent.
Nonono! The Director's cut of Donnie Darko spoils everything! The point of DD is that you make your own way, you dont want it explained!
I've not seen Brick, the reviews I read, though generally glowing with stars, never made it appeal to me. It sounded too contrived.
Incidentally, Me & You and EWK etc was one of my favourite films of the last few years. It had both style and substance, and I thought the performances, especially Miranda July, were heartwarming.
Got the Brick DVD. No extras :(
Super film mind you, second time around, and third. People should leave off buying it until another edition comes out, though.
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