Postavant

by Zach Heltzel

“There’s no such thing as an unwritten life, only a badly written one.”

The entirety of the film hinges upon the belief that both cons are artists, and that artists are cons. The film starts off with three, count ‘em, three cameos by Brick cast members, playing relatively similar characters as their characters in Brick, but with the entirely different tone that The Brothers Bloom puts on. Noah Segan (Dode) is a much more clean cut version of his character, Nora Zehetner (Laura) still has that cold, frame-stealing presence that made Laura such a great femme fatale, and Joseph-Gordon Levitt (Brendan) just sits in the background, hardly moving a muscle, not even featured in the credits but made obvious that it’s him, just idle, much like his character, while he was the main aspect and focus of Brick, to the perception of anyone other than himself, he was quiet and non-noticeable. The film throws these characters out there and throws them out that scene, a send-off from Brick giving us some pseudo-continuity, showing that the style and structure of Brick is thrown out the window and thus Bloom begins.

The excessively contrived nature of both Brick and now The Brothers Bloom, where every little moment seems to have impact in the future, no detail being insignificant, is finally made self-aware through Ruffalo’s character, who serves as the manifestation of Johnson as the writer of both films. Stephen Bloom constantly has written their lives and all of their cons, living them all, removing any sort of actual identity. The fascination and knowledge with literature is constantly being expressed, and the initial conflict of the film rests with Bloom (Adrien Brody) wanting “an unwritten life”, a thing Stephen mocks.

The way the plot is webbed together is as multifaceted and layered as these cons we witness the brothers pull off, and when the initial meeting of Bloom, the con man, and Penelope (Rachel Weisz), the “epileptic photographer”, which the first real conversation they have after all of the awkwardness presented by Weisz, who pulls off this socially inept girl perfectly, centers around her fruit-made pinhole camera, and that the un-duplicatable nature of any artform is a secret within a secret. The con man’s art is taking something away from someone without their knowledge, the artist’s con is giving something to someone without their knowledge.

As the con upon Penelope unfolds, the con is too clever for it’s own good in regards to how the audience is having to perceive it. The amounts of loopholes, tricks, and sheer wit being presented makes all of the Joker’s excessive planning and trickery in The Dark Knight seem relatively simple, and it’s very easy to believe that Stephen Bloom’s web of lies is perfectly realistic, as is Rian Johnson’s web of lies in his script. For example, the con of Penelope is that they wittingly reveal to her that they are indeed con men and that they already have conned her of a million dollars, and becomes a member of their crew along with their non-English speaking partner, Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), who has very little dialogue but as she proved in Babel, can convey and have a dominating presence on screen with body language. The level of Stephen’s con is incredible in the way that only he in the end understands it, as each con contradicts the other in his master plan where the levels of reality and plotting merge. With this confusion, the incredibly humorous and charming tone that the film takes on is thrown into a loop, bringing us back to the very dark, emotional angsty tone of Brick. As the stroke of the writer’s hand in his life is being pulled away, it seems as if the story is being written anyway, and it is. The audience is sometimes in the know of the con while the characters aren’t, and sometimes only the characters know while the audience is conned into thinking that the con has ended.

The ending of the film is when any of this begins to matter in the grand scheme, much like how the sum of the parts of Brick would not matter nearly as much if not for the ending’s importance. The brothers are eventually double crossed, but Stephen, constantly living the con, cons his brother into believing that this is all a part of the con. Stephen is able to get Penelope and Bloom away to go off in their life. It has to be said that problems do exist with this ending, as instead of the really satisfying reveals of Brick that are foreshadowed feel legitimately shocking and filled with weight, the foreshadowing here tends to be obvious. Lines of dialogue such as “The day I con you is the day I die.” and the focus on how fake blood, a common trait of the brothers’ act, how it does not turn brown with time as real blood does, and how they are usually stated right after another at least three times during the film, were really sloppily handled in comparison to the entirety of Brick and to the rest of the film. The entire film hinges upon the con of every art being “written”, whether written or written badly, every little aspect of the world having to be calculated and consciously made with the intent to make things seem as normal and unwritten as possible. This climax sort of falls in the “written badly” department, as it’s the only time when Stephen’s con doesn’t slip, but Rian’s does. That said, the shot of Bloom looking at his brother’s blood on his shirt as he and Penelope drive away and seeing it turn brown is really one of the more memorable shots of the year. It carries the emotional weight of Laura walking away down the football field at the end of Brick.

Speaking of cinematography, the two very strong aspects that also felt homegrown are still present in Bloom, being the cinematography and the score. The score is very similar to Brick’s with the instruments and homemade sound, while the cinematography borrows some pointers from the Wes Anderson handbook, as the entire style of the film’s look and humor is a mix of two Anderson’s; Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s a very fresh style that Johnson employs in this film, yet still feeling familiar. The humor is plentiful and there are many laugh out loud moments during the film; unlike Brick, it’s incredibly fun. The location shooting is beautiful, though my bias exists even more than the rest of the film, given my understated love for Brick; I was in Prague four days before I saw the film in the exact location that about a half hour of the film takes place. Having pictures on my hard drive right now that nearly match identically some of the shots is quite exciting, walking along the same alleyways of the city square as the characters gave me this excitement that makes me really wish I saw the film before I went. Johnson does as much as he can with the scope of the plot, as a way to makeup for how limited the scope of Brick was. The budget of this film was around $20 million, while Brick was around $500,000, and it shows. The awkward editing that was sometimes a necessity in Brick due to the shoestring approach has now been turned into a style by Johnson, his sudden cuts halfway through an action and during action sequences now work to his advantage as opposed to being a deterrant. The film is absolutely beautiful to look at, as Johnson already made the suburbs of Santa Monica look gorgeous on the cheap, taking advantage of this worldwide scope was very much working to the advantage of the film. The imagery matches the whimsy of Penelope, seeing these places for the first time much like the audience, showing us so many areas of the world in such a short amount of time.

Early in the film, Stephen says to Bloom with the prediction in mind that he would fall in love with Penelope, and he as the grand puppetmaster, the symbolic Mary Sue of Rian Johnson, he was absolutely correct, and while Bloom will want to ride off into the sunset, all sunsets turn into dark, uncertain nights. This line can easily be forgotten by the end of the film, a lot happens in that timespan while not much happens before this point, and Penelope and Bloom drive off into the sunset, and the screen fades to black. The end of Brick ends with Brendan and Brain walking back to normalcy, getting some sleep after the events that sat in front of them through the duration of the film. Then in Bloom, Johnson casually says bye to Brick, as if we will never see it again. That story has ended. However, Bloom and Penelope are still driving after the runtime ends. This kind of Rian Johnson is here to stay, but with much uncertainty as to where he will go. But let it be known, he is no one trick pony, and critical division and terrible release patterns by both Focus on Brick (the PTAs that movie was getting still baffles my mind; they just don’t make sense as the film had no major draw that early without WOM) and by Summit with this film. That said, Rian Johnson is one I can definitely call an auteur with a distinctive craft all his own, one that you can’t duplicate, but it’s all one big con anyway.

9.5/10

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Tags: Adrien Brody, Bloom, Brick, Brothers Bloom Movie, Con Man, Mark Ruffalo, Movie, Penelope, Rachel Weisz, RCJohnso, Review, Rian Johnson, Summit Entertainment, The Brothers Bloom

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