1/2

This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

Eat your heart out Wes Anderson. Ever since the sublime Rushmore, director Wes Anderson’s films have arrived on a slippery scale of diminished returns, visually transcendent but emotionally vacant. As if implicitly understanding that nature abhors such a vacuum, director Rian Johnson, who’s Brick was a bold and enthralling freshman masterpiece, borrows heavily from the Anderson aesthetic (if Tarantino can crib from his muses and be venerated for it, why not Johnson?) for his second outing, The Brothers Bloom, a magically effervescent film — the cinematic equivalent of champagne bubbles — that succeeds on its initial attempt where Anderson has so often failed.

The brothers Bloom grew up very much like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, crafty delinquents shuffled from one abusive foster home to the next with only each other to rely on. Conmen since childhood (conboys?), Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) discovered early on that there’s a rich sucker born every minute. But there was always a tug of war between the older Stephen who “writes his cons the way Russians write novels — with thematic arcs and embedded symbolism” and the younger Bloom who yearns to “live the unwritten life.” Although Bloom is desperate to get out of the game, Stephan convinces him to stay on for the proverbial last job, the perfect con to end all cons in which “everyone (including the conned) gets what they want.” For Stephen, the con itself is as important, if not more so, than the grift.

Bloom insinuates himself into the life of Penelope (Rachel Wiesz), an extravagantly wealthy heiress who lives as a shut-in (think “Gray Gardens,” only solo) within a monolithic New Jersey mansion where she spends her days collecting hobbies (sadly, one of them is not learning how to drive). Bloom woos her with stories of danger and adventure, cat nip to her decades’ long boredom. Even as Bloom develops genuine romantic feelings for Penelope and tries to break away, she impulsively joins the brothers and their explosives-wielding Japanese sidekick Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi) on a steamship, financing a globe-trotting adventure that will take them from Athens to Prague to Mexico to St. Petersburg. Convinced she’s stumbled upon the adventure of a lifetime and addicted to the illicit thrills it brings, Penelope is ignorant of the fact that she has taken the brothers’ bait hook, line and sinker and become an unwitting participant in what just may be the most dangerous swindle the brothers have ever attempted.

The Brothers Bloom’s bones come from 70’s cinematic influences, its heart beats with the panache of comedy classics like The Sting and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and its musculature is powered by quirky, emotionally resonant and sharply observed situations tinged with melancholy.

A photograph, Penelope tells us — no doubt also referring to the celluloid or digital projection that gives her life — is a lie that tells the truth. In this way, The Brothers Bloom is an existential comedy examining the manner in which we invent stories about ourselves and others. Storytelling isn’t simply a conduit for instruction or entertainment; it is a fundamental prism through which we comprehend our lives. Bloom’s life is almost pure deception; nothing is as it seems. It has come to the point that he no longer knows who he is other than a character in one of his brother’s ingenious plays. Does he have his own personality or is he merely a figment of Stephen’s imagination? Uncertain and even frightening as it may be, Bloom aches for “the unwritten life” in which he alone is the author.

The performances are delightful, bubbling with charm and chemistry. (Sharp eyes will catch the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos by Brick’s stars.) Brody and Ruffalo are lovable scamps with a penchant for old-school haberdashery — this is the sort of movie in which it is perfectly normal for men to wear white linen suits, flamboyant ascots and fedoras. They exhibit a genuine brotherly tenderness, which is a real credit to the film especially during its slightly darker third act. Weisz is delectable as the idiosyncratic Penelope (a montage in which she demonstrates all the skills she’s taught herself is enchanting) and easily seduces Bloom as well as the audience with her straightforward charms. And Kikuchi, last seen by American audiences in Babel, nearly steals the show though she has all of two lines.

Oh, but what lines she and her fellow characters are given. Johnson starts by assuming his audience is smart and eager to follow his sophisticated, even subtle comic sensibilities. Dancing between hysterical and whimsical, Johnson’s script is both mischievous and playful, crackling with terrific repartee and wordplay and set to jazzy, burlesque rhythms (the soundtrack is perfect) that reward attention to background details.

The Brothers Bloom proves that Brick was not a fluke. Writer/director Johnson’s talent and distinct voice are obvious. Unwilling to let himself be saddled with the Citizen Kane curse — a phenomenal first film produces impossible expectations for anything that follows it — Johnson weaves a tale so different in style and tone that it discourages comparison. Light and playful and given to only occasional lapses into preciousness, The Brothers Bloom bursts with life and is an absolute joy to watch. Before it’s over, your mouth will be sore from smiling.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.