The Brothers Bloom
Director: Rian Johnson
Starring: Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo
Runtime: 113 mins
Rating: **
For anyone who likes to use the category of ‘cult film,’ Rian Johnson’s Brick might be one of the greatest American examples of it from the 00s. This is partly a question of status (it’s the debut full-length film written and directed by the same person with a very low-budget) but mostly thanks to a quite brilliant style. Brick places a mid-20th century genre in a modern day setting, and then risks taking itself completely seriously, resulting in quiet irony instead of whimsical parody to accompany its murder plot.
Watching Johnson’s follow-up, The Brothers Bloom, I realised that there was much more to Brick’s startling originality than just that style: its plot and dialogue were intriguing for every step of the way, and so was its convincing hero. The Brothers Bloom is great in places, but its lead actor Adrien Brody simply couldn’t hold my interest, though he wasn’t dislikeable or irritating. Brick was a detective story that felt new; The Brothers Bloom is a con man tale that starts out in a knowing tradition of repeated manipulation, magic and trickery, and ends up seeming bored by it, without offering an exciting or insightful substitute.
After a wonderful introduction to him and his scheming brother played by Mark Ruffalo, Brody’s Bloom, having convinced himself he’s fed up with a fraudster’s life, is enticed into one last job – which in fact becomes the first in a series – involving Rachel Weisz’s sheltered, wealthy heiress. She has lived alone for most of her life in an old New Jersey mansion, and in a particularly amusing montage shows off the countless number of hobbies and skills she’s picked up over time. Johnson and Weisz make the most of comic, familiar character traits; the same can’t be said for the Japanese explosives expert (Rinko Kikuchi), the Belgian art dealer (Robbie Coltrane), or the Russian mentor/enemy (Maximilian Schell).
As you’d expect, what is and isn’t a con remains unclear for a long period of time in the plot that follows, but the film is thankfully not self-important as to its own cleverness, staying unbothered as to whether you’ve guessed correctly or not. If there’s any higher goal or point, though, it gets lost. The brilliant prologue lays out a specific framework for the character’s preferred choice of costume, company and capers. The main pleasure from the film involves following this production design being taken around the world, with a fondness for a certain era whose nostalgia is reigned in to create a sense of timelessness. Some original swing-inspired music by the director’s brother Nathan sits well with excerpts from old Nino Rota scores and pop songs by Bob Dylan and the Faces.
The Brothers Bloom tries to blend crime caper adventurousness with the storytelling of self-conscious storytelling, and this means lots of characters talking unsubtly about how living is and isn’t like being in a story. Like David Mamet’s very different con artist film House of Games, a story which suggests that existence is cyclical surprises its audience with a more decisive ending that includes the death of a major character. The outcome of The Brothers Bloom’s ending – and the film as a whole – however, is to generate mild affection rather than provoke a strong reaction.
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