Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the first look at Rian Johnson’s follow up to his impressive first feature BRICK, a conman flick called THE BROTHERS BLOOM, starring Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz.
Biases out of the way up front… I met Rian when he was doing the festival circuit on BRICK and we got along. We’ve kept in touch and I’ve been following his progress on this film since the beginning when I got my hands on his screenplay. I visited the set (read those reports DAY 1, DAY 2, DAY 3) and when Rian was preparing his first test screening I happened to be in LA, so the night before he brought me in to the lab and let me watch the rough cut.
I would count Johnson as a friend, but I also would say that I wouldn’t give a friend a free pass. I might not trash him publicly, but I’d be brutally honest.
With THE BROTHERS BLOOM I don’t have to make excuses for liking the movie. It’s a genuinely good flick and it’s in a completely different universe than BRICK. If I were to classify this film, I’d say it’s like if Hal Ashby had directed THE STING.
The film has that quirky balance of happy-go-lucky and heavy drama that Ashby was king of. Plus there’s also a little bit of a fairy tale aspect to it.
The opening of the movie concerns the origins of the Brothers Bloom and is narrated in rhyme to further underline the fairy tale aspect. You see the young Bloom brothers shuffled from foster home to foster home, always getting kicked out for some scheme or another, but they always have each other.
Setting the tone perfectly the opening shows us the first con from the Brothers Bloom. It’s sweet and lays the playing field for the rest of the movie, gives us the brothers’ set of morals. They believe the best con is one in which everybody, including the mark, gets exactly what they want, be it adventure or a fun afternoon as is the case with the childhood con that opens the movie.
By the time we’re introduced to adult Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) they’re definitely older, maybe not wiser, but even better at the game than when they were kids. Bloom is tired of it. He resents that he’s only ever the person he wishes he would be when pulling a con. Outside of that, he’s an introvert, shy… but when the con’s on, he’s whatever you need… Romantic, lady-killer, whatever.
He wants out. Stephen loves his brother, but also loves the con, so he’s torn. We’re introduced to Bang-Bang (BABEL’s Rinko Kikuchi), the Brothers’ silent (literally) partner in crime. Kikuchi comes damn close to stealing the movie. Bang-Bang is an expert with explosives and weapons... She’s beautiful, she’s funny and plays the (mostly) silent role for all its worth.
We’re also introduced to their new, and supposedly final, target: an eccentric billionaire named Penelope, played by Rachel Weisz.
Okay. If the rest of the movie didn’t work (which it does) then the fact that this is essentially a Rachel Weisz Fetishists’ dream come true would keep the movie afloat. I don’t think Weisz has ever been more beautiful than she is in this film.
Her character is a bit of a recluse, crashing expensive sports cars because she can’t drive really well and just having another delivered to her mansion, etc. She craves knowledge (she collects hobbies to keep herself occupied, everything from unicycle riding to harp playing), adventure, and even more, companionship. She has lived a very solitary life up until the Brothers Bloom come in promising a grand European adventure in the guise of being antiques dealers.
Penelope is so wide-eyed and innocent that Bloom can’t help falling for her during the con, but then we have to figure out… is he getting what he wants? Is he the mark? Or is the romance happening naturally? If so, what will it mean when they reveal their hand?
That’s the question always in the back of your mind. When is the con over? Who is the real target? At times you’ll be convinced it’s one thing and then by the next reel it’s completely changed and you’re sure you have it figured out now… then it turns on you again.
Also great in smaller roles are Robbie Coltrane and the man, the myth… the legend, Maximilian Schell, who plays a pedophiliac version of Dickens’ Fagan character, a pirate of a man who is always up to no good.
The movie is a great throwback to a better era of film and filmmaking. Even at the rough stage I saw it in (a few unfinished CG elements, like smoke and… chainsaws… yes, chainsaws…) the film flowed well and kept me surprised, which is a treat when you’ve read the script and you’re still surprised by the twists.
I’ve been saying it since I saw BRICK (and before I met him), but I’ll say it again. Rian Johnson is the real deal. People ask me all the time who is the next big thing and I keep referring them to Johnson. He hasn’t embarrassed my recommendations with his sophomore effort, he’s only earned them.
And he put a drunken camel in the movie, so you know he’s got the goods.
I think this hits sometime this fall. I’ll make sure to keep you guys up to date on it. Hopefully we’ll see a trailer soon so you can get a little taste of it yourself.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
