“As far as con man stories go, I think I’ve heard them all.” So goes the first line of The Brothers Bloom, delivered via narration by magician/character actor Ricky Jay. This narration may be controversial, but with the very first words of his second film, filmmaker Rian Johnson cops to the daunting task he’s set out for himself: to try to breathe new life into a genre older than movies, marked (no pun intended) by tropes and beats as familiar to any savvy viewer as they are to the archetypal grifters with hearts of gold that populate them. There’s no question that it’s derivative — it’s a story about stories that have already been written — but you’d have to be more cynical than I not to be charmed by what it does right.
The Jay-narrated prologue introduces us to childhood versions brothers Stephen (to be played as an adult by Mark Ruffalo) and his younger brother, known only as Bloom (played later by Adrien Brody). That one brother got the first name and the other the last should give an indication of the indivisible nature of their relationship, which is apparent even at ages 13 and 10. They go from one town (and foster home) to the next, with Stephen coming up with new, elaborate schemes to make money off the “playground bourgeoisie”, and the pliable Bloom serving as his lure. 25 years later, the Brothers Bloom are still at the same racket, but on a much larger scale; now they trot the globe within a single scheme, and celebrate each score with all-night wrap parties instead of popsicles.
Stephen is a magnanimous showman who blocks, casts and stage designs each con like a backyard filmmaker whose backdoor opens on to dilapidated theaters in St. Petersburg and beach cabanas in Mexico. Of course, he has a catchphrase: “The perfect con is the one in which everyone involved gets just the thing they wanted.” At the end of a successful blow-out in Berlin, all Bloom wants is to quit, to hide out in Montenegro and look for “an unwritten life” in a succession of bottles. It’s understandable that Stephen would have trouble buying his brother’s stated desire — after all, movies like this exist to make the viewer wish their own life could play out as if in a movie, and The Brothers Bloom is nothing if not self-conscious of its cinematic construction. And so Stephen and his weapons consultant/consigliere Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi) swiftly track Bloom down and talk him into One Last Con. They find their One Last Mark in Penelope (Rachel Weisz), an obscenely rich orphaned shut-in who, at age 33, is starving for romance and adventure. Bloom, always a mark for pretty girls but resistant to their charms unless romance is part of his brother’s plot, falls instantly and hard.
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A few weeks ago, Summit Entertainment released the first seven minutes of The Brothers Bloom online. Normally, this kind of marketing strategy is useful, particularly if the movie isn’t well known. However, it helps for such a movie to have a terrific opening, which grabs the viewer in and makes him/her need to see what happens after that teased beginning. The Brothers Bloom, unfortunately, has an unbearable start, enough that I couldn’t even get through the entire seven minutes. I turned the streaming video off at the 4:24 mark.
The primary cause of my annoyance was the voice-over narration, provided by actor/magician Ricky Jay, a man whose speech is easily recognizable, only not for good reason. His lisped reading, sounding like a poor man’s Wallace Shawn, ruined the movie for me immediately. And I decided within those few moments that I wouldn’t bother to go see The Brother’s Bloom in its entirety.
I later learned that Jay’s narration is only in the film for that seven-minute prologue that opens the film, so I am willing to give it another shot, with hope that it gets better. Due to my initial irritation, though, I’ve decided to share a list of ten other movies ruined by their voice-over narration.
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The Bloom poster took me three months to complete. Some days I worked six hours, some days I worked fourteen hours, and some days I watched a lot of reality TV, drank a lot of whiskey, and checked my Facebook a lot of times. This is what it looked like around week eight.
Zachary Johnson takes us inside the creative process behind the poster he designed for his cousin Rian Johnson’s second film, The Brothers Bloom. As I am having one of those high-Facebook days, but haven’t yet dipped into the reality TV or the whiskey, I figured blogging this might offer incentive for me to stay strong.
Fantastic Fest is hosting four “Secret Screenings” of movies that haven’t been released yet, and the first one unspooled last night to a theater full of people who had no idea what they were about to see. Rian Johnson was in town with a print of his movie The Brothers Bloom, and one lucky audience got to see it several months early.
It’s hard to watch Bloom and not think about the world that Wes Anderson’s films inhabit. Places where people travel by steamship, are always immaculately dressed, and consist of extreme caricatures. Johnson’s first feature Brick had that quality, and The Brothers Bloom has it in spades. It’s a fantasy world that Johnson himself probably wouldn’t mind living in, and I’m sure he’d have a fair share of people willing to follow him. At least one theater full of people last night wouldn’t have minded.
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Rian Johnson is the director of the innovative modern-day film noir Brick, which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and The Brothers Bloom is his impressive followup. While Brick is certainly set in a world of its own, with everyone in a contemporary high school speaking in 30s and 40s detective-speak, The Brothers Bloom takes place in a fantasy world chock full of steamships, fancy cars, and mysterious settings. He gets impressive performances out of Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz reinvents herself nicely, and Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi is terrific with an extremely tiny amount of dialogue. It’s well worth seeing when it comes out in January.
I sat down with Rian in Toronto and he told me about writing a part for Bob Dylan, his feelings about being compared to Wes Anderson, and his next project: a dark science fiction movie called Looper.
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Adam Del Deo and James Stern didn’t start out thinking they’d get into the documentary business, but Every Little Step marks their fourth documentary together as co-directors. It’s an emotional film that follows several hopeful dancer/singer/actors who hope to get cast in the 2006 revival of “A Chorus Line” on Broadway. I honestly didn’t think this would be too interesting of a film for me, having never seen the musical or the Michael Douglas movie version, but it was extremely compelling without taking a turn for a reality television style, which I’d feared would happen.
Stern, who also serves as the CEO for Endgame Entertainment, had earlier produced Legally Blonde: The Search for Elle Woods which was a reality show about casting the “Legally Blonde” musical, and I still can’t believe that even exists. He’s worked on Broadway for many years, which helped him secure the legendary reel to reel recordings that consisted of show creator Michael Bennett in conversation with dancers. These tapes not only helped Bennett to create A Chorus Line, but they also serve as the backbone to the film.
Read on after the break to find out what it was like making this film, how they got the tapes, and what they think about the current state of documentary filmmaking in America.
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As the Toronto International Film Festival draws to a close, we talk with Karina Longworth and Kevin Kelly about their experience. The Coen Brothers’ new film Burn After Reading gets a mixed reaction, apparently it’s better if you get to see it with Adrien Brody. Brody’s new film, The Brothers Bloom, by Brick director Rian Johnson, is one of Kevin’s favorites.
The Fall, a lush surrealist epic directed by Tarsem (yes, he only goes by one name), is out on DVD. Adam and I mull it over, comparing it to the 1973 campy classic Zardoz, starring a half-naked Sean Connery.
Lastly, I interview Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP about Independent Film Week, taking place in New York September 14-19. I should note that I accidentally mispronounced her name as “Boyd,” my apologies. It’s sort of funny if you imagine I have a strong Brooklyn accent for just that one word.
(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)
0:00 - Intro, a listener shares his woeful Crispin Glover tale
5:12 - Kevin and Karina’s dispatch from Toronto
19:45 - The Fall
30:46 - Michelle Byrd interview
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