Brick

Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a student loner, will stop at nothing to learn the truth when his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) comes to him for help and winds up dead, face down in a storm sewer drain. His search takes him through a dangerous underbelly no adult can reach: an upper-middle class high school of cliques, rich kids, athletes, nerds, and junkies. None of that matters to Brendan; he doesn't care who he has to go through or who he has to take it out on to find out who killed Emily and why.

Brick (2005) is not a gritty expose on the reckless lives of youth. It's a postured, stylized homage to film noir, neither realistic nor credible for any moment of its running length, but that's not a drawback. Film noir is style and attitude, a sense the world is a cruel and hopeless place filled with lowlifes. Glamor, wealth, and happiness are illusions hiding a world of corruption and perversion.

Brendan is the private detective figure, taking on a case for personal reasons to find a buried truth, and in the process, he finds his soul on the line. He's sharp, sardonic, and tough but wounded, haunted by his past, which we're told includes ratting out a friend and his breakup with Emily.

Fans of film noir will also recognize the figures Brendan encounters: the femme fatale, the drug lord, the brutish thug, the whacked-out druggie, the authority figure demanding answers, the well-connected informant.

Brendan doesn't talk like any high schooler I've ever known (nor is he ever seen in class). When confronted by a group of druggies, he tells them, “I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.”

When called into the office of the vice principal (Richard Roundtree), he sounds like a cop mouthing off to a superior: “No more of these informal chats! If you have a disciplinary issue with me, write me up or suspend me, and I'll see you at the parent conference.”

Just about everyone in the film talks in that elevated, stylized manner. Rich girl Laura (Nora Zehetner) cuts right to Brendan's heart when she tells him why she wants to help him: “You think nobody sees you. Eating lunch behind the portables. Loving some girl like she's all there is, anywhere, to you. I've always seen you. Or maybe I liked Emily. Maybe I see what you're trying to do for her, trying to help her, and I don't know anybody who would do that for me.”

In their final scene, on the football field, Brendan and Laura stand close together, and the way she stands, tilts her head, and speaks softly reminds me of Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai. Even her name is reminiscent of the eponymous Gene Tierney character and suits her: a female figure whose character and motivations we can't be sure of.

I was also reminded of the scene in Miller's Crossing when Gabriel Byrne is led to the woods where the body of someone he was supposed to kill should be, and Byrne knows the guy ain't there and ain't dead. In Brick, Brendan is taken to the sewer drain where he knows Emily's body is stashed, and if she's found, the others will think he killed her.

Classic film noir used deep shadows and expressionistic lighting, but Brick is stylistically drab and modern. Much of the film takes place in gray daylight in empty hallways and suburban street corners. In one scene, Brendan is attacked by a thug with a knife, and director Rian Johnson films the subsequent chase in long shots and long takes (without music) that show off the surroundings; it's not a pumped-up action scene but a desperate flight, and Johnson's film grammar emphasizes how alone and vulnerable Brendan is.

One expressionistic technique stands out occurs when Brendan, beaten senseless a number of times by this point, lies in bed. As he looks up at a spinning ceiling fan, we see from his point of view as the fan remains motionless while the room itself spins, showing just how physically and mentally off-balance Brendan feels.

There's also a neat scene where Brendan, in a dark basement, uses sunlight reflected off a mirror to find an important clue; the scene is shot so we can only clearly see what's directly in the light.

Johnson laces the film with dark, humor. The Pin (Lukas Haas) is hyped as the biggest, baddest drug dealer in the film, and he presents himself in dark suits and hushed tones. Yet, he operates out of his mother's basement, and she cheerfully offers breakfast (cereal and apple juice) for her son's criminal associates. Whether she (the only parent we meet) knows what her son does is a question not asked.

Brendan also regularly confronts an ex-girlfriend, Kara (Meagan Good), a theater girl who apparently keeps freshmen boys prostrated at her feet (hinting at some perverted, sexual dominance that is also a noir tradition). During her conversations, she suddenly tells someone to run an errand, and the servant stands and leaves, revealing he's been there the whole time just below frame.

Brick is The Maltese Falcon for Millennials. The characters of classic film noir, made during World War II and the Cold War, found despair and nihilism by a rapidly changing world that seemed larger, darker, and irrational. Brick updates the archetypes and style to a modern setting and finds its own cynicism and nihilistic alienation.