Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
6/28/09
And now a word from Old Man
Kukuk:
“Ah, ya crazy kids and your
Transformers and Wolverines and all those big-budget sequel / prequel /reboot/
reimagining / relaunches that never live up to the hype! I'm
telling ya yer killin' the movie business by only goin' to see stuff that
makes ya think yer gonna relive the feelin' of seein' some other movie
ya loved three years ago! And don't even look at me like that, my
fellow oldsters, 'cause y'all ain't goin' to the movies at all anymore,
bunkered down in yer livin' rooms with yer home theaters an' yer swine
flu masks. Who's gonna make movies fer ya if ya won't even go when
they do! Now, there's a really great flick out called The Brothers
Bloom that's funny as all heckfire and it makes ya think about the
human condition if ya wanna, an' it's got great performances from that
girl who fought the Mummy and that guy who ran around after King Kong.
But are ya gonna go see it? Hell, no! 'Cause it prob'ly ain't
even playing anyplace where they don't sell tasteful coffees and scones
an' have a discussion group afterwards! And that part's yer fault
too!”
Whoa, see how I get when
I don't have my orange juice in the morning? But it's true:
twenty years ago, The Brothers Bloom, a truly delightful caper comedy
filled with familiar faces cheerfully working at the top of their games,
would have had a good shot at being a mainstream hit. Today, it's
a marginalized Art House title. But that doesn't mean you can't seek
it out and get the thrill of feeling superior to everyone who hasn't seen
it, just like Old Man Kukuk.
A narrator (Ricky Jay) tells
us the tale of The Brothers Bloom: as children, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo)
and Bloom (Adrien Brody) bounced from foster home to foster home because
of their instinct for mischief and, in some cases, larceny. At one
of their new homes, Bloom spots a girl he likes, but can't bring himself
to talk to her. So Stephen devises an elaborate scheme in which Bloom
will not have to be himself, just play a role, and when all is said and
done the brothers will be 30 dollars richer. It works like a charm,
and soon the Brothers are pursuing bigger and bigger con jobs until at
last Bloom simply can stand no more. He's only out for a few months
before Stephen and their mysterious sidekick Boom Boom (Rinko Kikuchi),
who speaks only two words of English but is a master of explosives, show
up on his doorstep with a new plan. In New Jersey, they've found
the lovely Penelope Stemp (Rachel Weisz) living alone in the vast mansion
left to her by her parents. A series of tragedies and misunderstandings
have led her to spend her entire life there, never developing social skills
or relationships. But she has “collected hobbies”, becoming a master
of everything from unicycle chainsaw-juggling and breakdancing to the piano,
rapping and kung-fu (she has not, however, mastered driving). Because
they're professionals, it's no trouble for the Brothers Bloom to make her
think it was her idea to accompany the self-proclaimed antique dealers
on a boat to Europe. En route, they encounter The Curator (Robbie
Coltrane), who “reveals” them to be smugglers. He wants to deal them
in on an offer to buy a book from him for a million dollars with a buyer
lined up to pay them 2.5 million in Mexico. If only someone had a
million dollars lying around.... So begins a series of crosses, double-crosses,
revelations and surprises that will leave both Brothers Bloom asking themselves
who they can really trust.
“A good con,” Stephen tells
us, “is one where everybody gets what they want.” Because the real
theme of The Brothers Bloom is that life is a con we play on ourselves.
We all write ourselves a story that explains the choices we've made; and
once it's locked in that story has a way of making our future choices for
us. Stephen defines himself by trying to make Bloom happy, and his
cons are all failed attempts to give his brother “what he wants.”
Bloom's story is of a life denied, trapped inside Stephen's tales, never
doing anything but playing a part. Penelope tells herself she's chosen
to lock herself away in that mansion, but the moment she gets a chance,
engages in an extreme rewrite, even going so far as to write the words
“Penelope the Smuggler” over and over on a piece of paper. But what
really makes things hard to navigate is that we're not just writing a narrative
of our own lives, but also trying to force those around us into the roles
we wrote for them. And it's there that The Brothers Bloom gets tricky.
Any time those three characters are together, who can say if Stephen and
Bloom are on the same page or if Penelope is playing the role their con
was designed to push her into or going off-script and changing things up
on them? Who's sincere and who's running a con? Often these
elements can be frustrating and a part of me worried as the movie rounded
the corner toward its' climax that it would collapse into a heap of double-crosses
and twists. But the movie's final revelations are very much driven
by character rather than any need writer/director Rian Johnson might feel
to prove his cleverness.
And you don't need to think
deep thoughts to enjoy The Brothers Bloom. Johnson has created
a series of delightful characters and the actors are all-in on bringing
them to life. Weisz is as good as she's ever been, creating a true
oddball who's alternately desperate and strong-willed, but is always high-spirited.
A montage where she shows off her many hobbies is one of the year's best
scenes, and I can't give the actress enough credit for actually learning
enough of all those crazy skills to do her own stunts (you'll notice no
chainsaws ever actually get juggled, but she really did ride that sky-high
unicycle). I don't always connect with Ruffalo, who strikes me as
unnecessarily morose in some roles, but he's got glorious carnival barker
spring in his step as Stephen. Most importantly, he's able to sell
the role's most important conceit, that for all his machinations, this
is a man who's never done anything out of selfishness, just misguided love
for his brother. Brody's got a challenge of his own keeping Bloom
(whose name is presumably Bloom Bloom, although the movie never actually
settles that) sympathetic since, for all his protestations, he's always
ready to fall in line with Stephen's schemes. He pulls it off wonderfully,
and really made me pull for him to turn out to be sincere no matter how
many times he let me down.
They're backed by skillful
performances as some very colorful characters. Kikuchi, making her
first appearance in an English-language movie since her Oscar nomination
for Babel, once again doesn't say much (those
two words of English she knows are a hoot when finally revealed), but is
as hilarious here as she was heartbreaking there. Boom Boom mysteriously
appeared one day in Bloom's hotel room and has been by their side ever
since, wearing a goofy and random assortment of crazy costumes and doing
most of her talking with body language and written notes. Maximilian
Schell is tremendous as Diamond Dog, the arch-criminal who taught the Brothers
everything they knew as teens and now harbors a desire for vengeance against
Stephen for the small matter of a lost eye. Coltrane is his usual
charming self and skillfully works the doubt we have about just how much
The Curator is on-board with Stephen's plans.
The Brothers Bloom
has the gloss of a major studio production and is attractively filmed at
a variety of Eastern European locations. It's a tad peculiar that
this is the second year in a row that Summit Entertainment has released
a movie with fairy tale overtones about a beautiful woman named Penelope
locked away by her wealthy parents who only wants to find love and adventure
in the outside world, but since this one, unlike Penelope,
is a winner, they really shouldn't do it again next year.
Take the advice of Old Man
Kukuk: “That there Brothers Bloom is a hoot! You forget
about goin' ta see that Transformers
2 again hopin' yer gonna like it this time and get yerself to a real
movie!” Don't make me tell you how it was when we used to have to
walk uphill both ways to see movies like this. |
