Kills Me Dead

I saw The Brothers Bloom tonight. I think it was the world premiere and further research is making me terribly distraught that it’s getting limited release on December 19th before going wide in January. FAIL.

1. Don’t watch the trailer to this movie — it’s total bullshit. Whoever put that thing together obviously mainlined Guy Ritchie movies and the Ocean’s trilogy in large doses and the only way you can tell this isn’t a Guy Ritchie or Ocean’s movie is that it features neither Jason Statham nor George Clooney. The thing is, I like those movies! But this is not that kind of heist film. The trailer is all paint-by-numbers and reduces the naive and joyful humour in this movie to lame sight gags and pratfalls. This is a tragic, tragic crime, my friends. This trailer upsets me. I’m glad I didn’t watch it until after I saw the movie. Then again, had I seen it prior to seeing the film, I would have been pleasantly surprised by what the film actually entailed.
2. You know what I’m finding rarer and rarer in movies? Joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. Joy in the filmmaking, joy in the storytelling, joy in the production, joy everywhere, and — most importantly — joy that translates to the audience experience. I experienced joy watching this movie. I don’t know if it seemed exponentially more joyous because the last film I saw was The Hurt Locker last night (which is, for obvious reasons, notably unjoyous), but this movie made me smile right from the start and even when I had reason to stop smiling, they were still bittersweet moments. Never an angry or bitter or jealous moment. These feelings don’t exist in this movie. It’s just joy. Joy and love underscore everything.
3. They tell you right from the start how the movie is going to end so it’s just a matter of determining how many more turns and revelations and cons it will take to get there. This is about the journey, not the destination.
4. I am a fan of Rachel Weisz in this. She’s very natural.
5. The costuming was phenomenal. A guy in the Q&A afterwards correctly described it as being timeless. There’s a scene at the beginning where the genius of Stephen Bloom’s heist-plotting skills are revealed in how he manipulated someone into shooting Bloom Bloom (yes, Bloom is his first name too ETA wrong*) by setting up the scenario so that Bloom’s clothing matched the clothing the would-be assassin’s wife was wearing when she announced she was leaving him. A small detail like that is part of Stephen’s character development, but that kind of attention to detail is just part of the film in general across the board with every costume choice.

   *The movie’s website says:
   

   Q: So is Adrien Brody’s character’s name “Bloom Bloom”?
   A: No, “Bloom” is his last name. But his first name is so ridiculously embarrassing, he’s never used it, and just goes by Bloom.

6. They’re labelling this a romantic comedy but that completely misleads you into thinking there will be elements of cheese and schmaltz and there just aren’t. Just like you know how the movie will end, you also know that Bloom is going to fall in love with Penelope despite Stephen warning him not to, but that you know this is going to happen is so not the point. Bloom and Penelope are awkward without being painful, cute without being cloying, and genuine despite the circumstances of their meeting.
7. Also, this isn’t a heist film so much as it is genuinely a caper. It’s playful, it’s freewheelin’ but it’s never wacky or inane. Fine balances have been struck here, lines have been toed, and we’re all better off for it. At any rate, this movie is more about storytelling and casting spells over people’s imaginations than it is about an actual heist, which is what I think makes it much more powerful than your standard heist film. Those who go into this expecting Guy Ritchie will be disappointed on that front; character development and the understanding of each character by the other characters is what propels the heist forwards. This movie is multi-layered. There’s a great part right at the start of the film where Bloom describes Stephen’s planning process for each heist and we see that he comes up with these elaborate multi-part flow charts and stoyrboards, with participants in the heist having their own character arcs as the heist progresses. Bloom moans the fact that Stephen has written Bloom’s entire life as a result of his inclusion in all their meticulously thought out capers and he says he longs for an “unwritten” life. Life, says Stephen, can’t ever be “unwritten” and everything comes back to the art of storytelling.
8. The soundtrack is great and I want to buy it.
9. This movie is hysterically funny in a refreshing, off-beat kind of way. There’s nothing forced or contrived about it despite the fact that the plot itself is based on contrivances and predictability. It’s eager. It’s like a golden retriever.
10. We were lucky enough to have the director, Rian Johnson, at our screening and if you listen to him talk for ten seconds, you can tell that all the joy and naturalness and humour comes directly from him. The guy is freaking adorable in his enthusiasm and love for this and it just oozes out all over the place in the movie. Before the movie started, he came out on stage with a guy with a guitar who played in the background while he introduced the film and said his thanks to various people. He explained that the guitar player was his cousin and also the person who did the music for the film and then he joked that he’d hired him to follow him around writing the score to his day-to-day life, hahaha. Then he brought out Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, and Mark Ruffalo on stage while his cousin started playing and singing “Paper Moon” for the audience. Johnson started dancing with Weisz and, not to be out done, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo started slow dancing with each other on stage. I kid you not. Pics, because it did happen:

    

    They’re freaking adorable. And they were all funny and ad-libby in the Q&A after the movie as well, which was great. People who have joy in what they do bring me joy too. JOY. I want to follow Rian Johnson closely now because I like the cut of his jib.

11. One thing that annoys me with these kinds of premieres is that whole sections of excellent seats are reserved for the production companies and their staff, which is understandable but disappointing. This, of course, leads to lots of RESERVED signs being taped to the seats, which also allows you to strategically choose where to sit. I ended up with two seats and an aisle between myself and Mark Ruffalo, which was sort of neat. More amusing was that “RESERVED FOR MARK RUFFALO (GUEST)” turned out to be… Ethan Hawke? They’re in What Doesn’t Kill You, which I’m seeing on Saturday, together so I guess he’s in town for that. The premiere is tomorrow, so I guess they’ll be at that as well.
12. I just want you to know that I love Adrien Brody. I’ve always loved Adrien Brody — he’s not conventionally handsome yet he’s ridiculously attractive. Rian Johnson was saying that while the costuming was great in the film, it also looks great because it gets to hang on beautiful people like Adrien Brody — the suits he wears would not have the same effect if worn by Johnson himself. The Adrien Brody Eyes of Extreme Sorrow™ are back in full force as usual and they always manage to make him look so sad and resigned, it just makes a girl want to run him a warm bath and make him a cup of tea. I want him to be in everything, ever. He makes me think awful, debauched things about him, even though he showed up tonight looking like he does at the end of The Pianist when he’s trying to open an ancient can of pickles.
13. I was all hem-and-haw about what to rate this, but I have unabashed love for this movie so it gets five stars. FIVE STARS. It’s been nineteen months since something was five stars in my book. Do you realise how liberating this is? I feel JOY.
14. It may not float everyone’s boat, but I appreciate this film’s honesty.