Brick

(.mov trailer / imdb / official site)

I saw Brick last weekend. And unlike X-Men 3 this film was very far removed from 'meh'.

It is a detective story done in the style of Film Noir and set in modern day American high school. It's important to note that this isn't just a gimmick: it was an decision made by the director simply because he needed an environment for a detective film in that has not been done a million times over. In Rian Johnson's own words: 'Brick is not set in high school for any postmodern twist or to make a comment on the genre; it was meant to free us up to take a more straightforward approach to the genre. We wrestled with the question of "How do you 'do' the genre today?" This was the weird approach that we decided on.' The film's tagline is, simply, 'A detective story.'

The film has a very particular uneasy 'feel' to it. The film has faults, but lack of originality is definitely not one of them. The pacing is a bit weird as the build up of twists, characters and increasing peril for the main character is not as intese as it could have been. And, ultimately, as pointed out by my girlfriend, the story is relatively straight-forward: it progresses in quite a linear manner and there is no point in the film where the main character is truly lost or confused... All of the characters introduced play a specific role within the film and all the noir archetypes are present and accounted for. There are a few twists, but unfortunately they do not quite pack enough punch.

One thing that I personally loved about the film was the deliberately obtuse dialogue, filled with detective/youth lingo (most reviews of the film tend to provide a glossary for some of the most commonly used terms, even though the meaning can be deducted from the context). The dialogue was decidedly unnatural, very far removed from the slick and natural feeling dialogue one is used to in 'high school films' (Joss Whedon/American Pie representations of youth culture.) The film's impetus is the fateful line delivered by the main character's ex-girlfriend: 'I did what she said with the brick, I didn't know it was bad, but the pin's on it now for poor Frisco and they're playing it all on me.' This code is unraveled throughout the film with the main character decoding it while the audience is along for the ride. Johnson explains the deliberate style they chose for the people to speak in the story and why it doesn't sound 'natural':

'In Brick, we do reference some of those [noir films], just because this type of language was handled so well back then; dialogue was said in a way it's not said today. For performance touchstones, we had to reference back before realism came into vogue, because there's nothing realistic about the dialogue. One of the first things we discovered was that if you take this dialogue and try to perform it in a realistic fashion, it doesn't work. It's like trying to put a tomato into a matchbox; it's not meant to fit. The dialogue in Brick is in a style that's not used today, so the actors mostly hadn't done it before. To see how actors used to handle dialogue, we watched Billy Wilder films; His Girl Friday; Singin' in the Rain - movies you wouldn't expect to go along with the feel of Brick.'

The dialogue takes a while to get used to and is greatly helped by familiarity with films like 'His Girl Friday' and 'Maltese Falcon'. That being said, there is some really excellent back-and-forth between the characters. Much like the characters in the film, the dialogue is larger than life. This was quite off-putting to some people in the audience and we saw 3 people leave the cinema, and 2 of them left just after 10 minutes!

I do have to mention the cast of the film. Truly amazing work from everyone involved, but more specifically I have to give props to Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his portrayal of Brendan, the gum-shoe main character of the film. Inspite of his thin frame and innocent face, he has an intensity that appears seemingly out of nowhere. The role is pleasantly complex and requires a tough mix of physicality, intellect and emotion, that he manages to balance very well. He's practically in every scene of the film and effectively has to carry most of the weight on his shoulders. Not an easy feat even for established actors (yeah, Brad Pitt, I'm looking at you) but Gordon-Levitt does a remarkable job.

Definitely a film I'm picking up on DVD. Looking forward to any behind-the-scenes stuff the DVD might have. A commentary at least would be informative (as the film was shot on a tiny budget with only 20 days of shooting.)