Review: Brick

“Maybe I’ll just sit here and bleed at you.”
 

What’s it all about? “Brick” opens with its protagonist, Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), standing silently over the body of his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) as she lies dead in a storm drain. The film follows Brendan’s journey into the “seedy underbelly” of his high school to investigate how she got there, and identify her murderer. 

I know “Brick” has shown its beautiful, witty, intelligent face here at the Final Girl Project before. But the review was only about three sentences long. I had to amend that as soon as possible.

The film draws heavily on the plot, characterization and dialogue of hard-boiled detective classics (see: Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler). The dialogue is the film’s most noteworthy stylistic attribute — and it’s heroin to my English-specialist mind. Like reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, the speech of the characters grows on you and becomes easier to understand over time. And the characters?  They are straight out of the hard-boiled classics. There’s the detective, his partner — here, he’s a nerd– the victim, the femme fatale, the prostitute (or, rather, a drama student), the muscle and the kingpin (who lives in his parents’ basement). 

The exchanges between Brendan and his partner, Brian (also known as “Brain”), are the most enjoyable to watch — but, unfortunately, their exchanges are limited for the most part to telephone conversations. It was a pleasant surprise to see Emilie de Ravin as Emily, the murdered ex-girlfriend of the protagonist. Her Australian accent didn’t show through once — and I was listening pretty damn hard. Believe me, right now I’d take just about anything Lost-related. I’m still mourning it’s loss. 

The film requires repeat viewings to get all the dialogue underneath your belt, and to pick up the insane amount of wit and charm packed into the story. This is quite possibly one of the greatest finds I’ve run across in a very long time. 

Favourite Scene: When Brendan coughs himself unconscious, Tug takes him home with him so that he can recover in safety. Brendan, ever the stubborn detective, refuses to stay in Tug’s house. So, he walks downstairs toward the front door and what he sees there is hilarious. I won’t ruin it for you. 

Notes: Directed by Rian Johnson; Produced by Ram Bergman, Mark G. Mathis; Written by Rian Johnson; Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emilie de Ravin, Nora Zehetner, Matt O’Leary, Noah Fleiss, Brian J. White, Meagan Good, Noah Segan, Lukas Haas, Richard Roundtree; Music by Nathan Johnson; Cinematography by Steve Yedlin; Editing by Rian Johnson.