WhatzUp

Brick
by Derek Neff

Director Rian Johnson won the "Originality of Vision" award at Sundance, and for good reason: his debut feature Brick is quite unlike anything else you're likely to see this year. It would be hard to overstate Johnson's talent as a pioneer in his dialogue-writing skills; his use of language in Brick is remarkably precise, eccentric and quotable.

Of course, no movie exists in a complete vacuum, and some would say that Brick is little more than a clever mash-up of high school satires like Heathers and hard-boiled private eye classics like The Big Sleep. And I suppose it basically is, but what makes the movie truly different is that these people don't talk like anyone, anywhere. The movie is shot in the real world, and mostly looks realistic, but its use of language is nothing short of surreal.

The movie opens with our bespectacled teen hero Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) standing by an open drainage ditch, obviously upset by the sight of a young woman's body lying face-down near the water. The movie then flashes back to show us that the girl in question is actually Brendan's ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin). In the last days of her life, Emily asked for Brendan's help, though Brendan didn't know what form of help she needed, or why. After her death, he single-mindedly pursues the mystery of what happened to her, and why (Shades of Twin Peaks here). His quest takes him all the way to the top of the local criminal food-chain in the form of a mysterious drug kingpin who goes by the name of, simply, The Pin (Lukas Haas). Brendan lives on his considerable wits, his hard-bitten cynicism and the tips fed to him from the Brain (Matt O'Leary), a boy who seems to know a little bit about almost everything. He's also busy fending off the advances of a beautiful femme fatale named Laura (Nora Zehetner).

All of these people, it should be pointed out, are teenagers. Even The Pin holds business meetings in his mom's kitchen, while she circles about making sure everyone has plenty of apple juice to drink.

I spent the first half-hour of Brick actively disliking its strangeness. It is the kind of movie that has to teach us, as we go, how to watch it. By the 45-minute mark I had come around to its way of thinking, and by the time the closing credits rolled I was sorry to see it over and half-anxious to watch it again. The complex plot never fails to surprise and entertain, the action set-pieces are unexpectedly effective and the language is so delectable you'd almost prefer to read it than hear it spoken aloud. (I highly recommend turning the subtitles on, just for this reason.) Brick is definitely not for everyone, but it has an unmistakable touch of greatness to it. Anyone interested in hearing a truly new voice in cinema would do well to check it Brick.