Brick (2005, Dir. Rian Johnson)
Synopsis:
High-school loner, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) turns detective when he finds his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Raven) murdered. Hiding the body and enlisting the help of his friend “The Brain” (Matt Leary), he launches his own investigation into Emily’s murder; which brings him into contact with the untrustworthy Laura (Nora Zehetner), local dope supplier “The Pin” (Lukas Haas) and his unstable henchman Tug (Noah Fleiss). However, as the stakes grow higher and Brendan finds himself drawn into a turf war between The Pin and Tug, finding Emily’s killer starts to compete with getting out alive.
I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I hadn’t even heard of Rian Johnson’s work until Looper, and whilst I still have mixed feelings about that film, it’s this, his debut film, which has truly made me a fan of his work and given me high hopes about whatever he might direct in the future.
Brick revolves around a fairly singular dramatic conceit: Take the film noir/private detective movie, with it’s genre staples and clichés and transpose it to an American school.
It’s a conceit that works because it acknowledges a truth: however trivial a teenager’s problems might seem to a adult, they are deadly serious to a teenager. Here the problems are genuinely “Deadly” and yet, Johnson never totally removes the feeling that this is a very insular world that the grown ups in the film (we really only see two) would not take seriously if they knew about it. In the two main interactions with adults in the movie, with Richard Roundtree (Shaft) as a Deputy head teacher talking to Brendan like the Chief of Police might talk to Jack Nicolson’s character in Chinatown, or in the fabulous scene where Pin’s mother is fixing Brendan a drink, it’s clear they have no idea what’s really going on. In fact, almost totally removing adults from the equation is essential to the film’s power, as means reality is unable to intrude upon the story. We accept the kids adoption of film noir-style dialogue and the surreality of seeing the typical noir plot devices (the double cross, kidnapping, mysterious phone calls, the questioning of a showgirl etc) superimposed on this immature, teenage world because there’s nothing to pull the viewer out of it.
Comparisons to things like Twin Peaks or Heathers, which also resolutely follow their cinematic world’s own brand of logic are clear; but, for me, an additional influence would be the films of Wes Anderson. They also create their own peculiar reality, which ignore realism as far as plot, mis-en-scene, and dialogue are concerned, but follow it religiously in terms of action or on-screen violence.
The mashup of the two genres is helped by how easily their archetypal characters can be transposed onto one another. Like the private eye in film noir, high school loner Brendan has a past — he’s not the squeaky clean hero of a teen movie; in fact, as the film progresses it becomes clear that he and The Pin have a similar background, which helps Brendan to ultimately gain his trust. As with the best film noir, the Iine here between “hero” and “villain” is very thin indeed and Brendan’s actions at the end of the film serve to re-enforce this. Ultimately, like all those other gumshoes, by the end of the film he’s left alone and disillusioned by what he has uncovered.
All the other archetypes are present as well: The It girl becomes the femme fatale, the unhinged jock becomes the psychopathic henchman, the high school dope peddler becomes the mysterious underworld crime boss; and yet because of the usual setting and the seriousness of the tone these never become pastiches. Instead, they’re rendered fresh and even the most jaded film noir fan will revel in the way well-worn plot devices are re-configured and revived here.
There’s much to savor in this little gem of a film. The cast, the majority of whom are well under 25, all attack the roles and the hard-boiled noir dialogue with relish. Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivers an astounding performance as Brendan, a million miles away from his jokey, goofy teenage roles in films like 10 Things I Hate About You, but equal praise must go to Nora Zehetner as the duplicitous Laura and Noah Fleiss as the terrifying Tug. The cinematography, by Steve Yedlin, has the unenviable task of walking the line between providing the shadowy scenes film noir needs and yet still giving the look of a high school movie. That it succeeds so well is yet another reason to check out a film that is the best look of the dark side of teenage life since River’s Edge.
