Brick (2005)
I guess this what you call high concept indie. Rian Johnson’s film transposes a hard boiled, old school noir to a contemporary high school. The gumshoe, the damsel in distress, the femme fatale, the heavy, the king pin: they are all there. Everyone speaks in a thick, outmoded slang. It is a slightly dubious proposition but one that works surprisingly well.
Following a drug-related absence Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) returns to school because his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), is in trouble. Two days later she is dead. Rather than tip the bulls - tell the cops - he sets out to find her killer. Hunched up inside his coat, face guarded by his fringe, he carves a swathe through the social cliques of the school to find out how she was involved with a missing brick of heroin. Eventually this search leads him to The Pin (Lukas Haas) and Brendan has to make his play.
Johnson gives the viewer little cause to question this. However his assured depiction is shaken by the intrusion of adult characters, who cause the dissonance between this secret world and the real world to become too strong. When Brendan meets the Vice Principal (Richard Roundtree) it is more like he is hammering out a deal with the District Attorney. Worse, having suffered a savage beating in The Pin’s basement lair he is then ushered upstairs to be served cereal and apple juice by The Pin’s mom. It is a bit too jokey and jars the viewer.
Up until then the film’s total belief in its premise carries it along, helped in no small part by Gordon-Levitt’s central performance. Following a great role as a cocky small town rent boy in Mysterious (2004) here he plays a different sort of tough young loner. The role plugs firmly in the Masochist Hero tradition where maleness is defined not by how much punishment you can give but by how much you can take. And Brendan takes a lot. He spends the second half of the film couching and stumbling from internal injuries. In the face of this pain he struggles onwards, masking his wounds from those around him. Gordon-Levitt is excellent at capturing Brendan’s too cool for school persona, his awareness of this persona and the rare moments when it cracks, whether through physical or emotional necessity.
With one notable exception the violence is filmed in a self-consciously stylised way. This is one of only things in the film that gives any support to what the viewer cannot help but wonder: is it all a dream? It is notable that Brendan spends a lot of time sleeping, the talisman of his bedside clock framed beside him. Generally, however, the film encourages an entirely literal reading and despite the obvious obstacles and occasional slips it is impress how often this succeeds.
Following a drug-related absence Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) returns to school because his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), is in trouble. Two days later she is dead. Rather than tip the bulls - tell the cops - he sets out to find her killer. Hunched up inside his coat, face guarded by his fringe, he carves a swathe through the social cliques of the school to find out how she was involved with a missing brick of heroin. Eventually this search leads him to The Pin (Lukas Haas) and Brendan has to make his play.
Johnson gives the viewer little cause to question this. However his assured depiction is shaken by the intrusion of adult characters, who cause the dissonance between this secret world and the real world to become too strong. When Brendan meets the Vice Principal (Richard Roundtree) it is more like he is hammering out a deal with the District Attorney. Worse, having suffered a savage beating in The Pin’s basement lair he is then ushered upstairs to be served cereal and apple juice by The Pin’s mom. It is a bit too jokey and jars the viewer.
Up until then the film’s total belief in its premise carries it along, helped in no small part by Gordon-Levitt’s central performance. Following a great role as a cocky small town rent boy in Mysterious (2004) here he plays a different sort of tough young loner. The role plugs firmly in the Masochist Hero tradition where maleness is defined not by how much punishment you can give but by how much you can take. And Brendan takes a lot. He spends the second half of the film couching and stumbling from internal injuries. In the face of this pain he struggles onwards, masking his wounds from those around him. Gordon-Levitt is excellent at capturing Brendan’s too cool for school persona, his awareness of this persona and the rare moments when it cracks, whether through physical or emotional necessity.
With one notable exception the violence is filmed in a self-consciously stylised way. This is one of only things in the film that gives any support to what the viewer cannot help but wonder: is it all a dream? It is notable that Brendan spends a lot of time sleeping, the talisman of his bedside clock framed beside him. Generally, however, the film encourages an entirely literal reading and despite the obvious obstacles and occasional slips it is impress how often this succeeds.