Brick
Seen at Coolidge Corner Theater Screening Room
* * * * (out of 5)
Brick is a very unusual film. Its brilliance lies in the fact that the characters exist in a sort of parallel universe. It’s a world where people talk in strange patterns, with strange analogies, and no one thinks twice. And showing emotion is BAD. It’s a world of noir, which Rian Johnson has brought it crashing headlong into the high-school drama genre, and he handles both sides brilliantly.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, a loner at his high school. When the film starts, Brendan is outside an aqueduct, grieving over the body of a blonde girl. Retracing his steps shows the girl to be Emily (Emile de Ravin), Brendan’s ex-girlfriend that he never really got over. Days earlier, Emily, who hadn’t been seen for some time, called Brendan in a panic, ranting about some trouble she’d gotten herself into. Not understanding half of what she said, Brendan enlists the help of The Brain (Matt O’Leary), who knows just about everything that goes on in the school, and begins unraveling the events that eventually led to Emily’s death. In doing so, he must burrow deep into an underground drug syndicate that Emily was linked to, agitating an already volatile situation.
For the first half hour, the gimmick is a hard sell – as a viewer, you really need to readjust your perception of normal speech and behavior. Once you get there, though, the world is so engaging that the snippets of reality that pop up every once in awhile are almost jarring. Most interesting is that for the most part, these characters operate almost completely independent of adult involvement. They are so on their own that it almost seems absurd when The Brain remarks that he’ll have to borrow his mother’s car. All the dialogue is so well-written and performed that you'll quickly pick up the flow of it.
Read the rest at HBS!
* * * * (out of 5)
Brick is a very unusual film. Its brilliance lies in the fact that the characters exist in a sort of parallel universe. It’s a world where people talk in strange patterns, with strange analogies, and no one thinks twice. And showing emotion is BAD. It’s a world of noir, which Rian Johnson has brought it crashing headlong into the high-school drama genre, and he handles both sides brilliantly.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, a loner at his high school. When the film starts, Brendan is outside an aqueduct, grieving over the body of a blonde girl. Retracing his steps shows the girl to be Emily (Emile de Ravin), Brendan’s ex-girlfriend that he never really got over. Days earlier, Emily, who hadn’t been seen for some time, called Brendan in a panic, ranting about some trouble she’d gotten herself into. Not understanding half of what she said, Brendan enlists the help of The Brain (Matt O’Leary), who knows just about everything that goes on in the school, and begins unraveling the events that eventually led to Emily’s death. In doing so, he must burrow deep into an underground drug syndicate that Emily was linked to, agitating an already volatile situation.
For the first half hour, the gimmick is a hard sell – as a viewer, you really need to readjust your perception of normal speech and behavior. Once you get there, though, the world is so engaging that the snippets of reality that pop up every once in awhile are almost jarring. Most interesting is that for the most part, these characters operate almost completely independent of adult involvement. They are so on their own that it almost seems absurd when The Brain remarks that he’ll have to borrow his mother’s car. All the dialogue is so well-written and performed that you'll quickly pick up the flow of it.
Read the rest at HBS!
posted by Matt S. at
10:30 AM
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