"The Brothers Bloom"

By David Hudson on 05/14/2009

[Updated through 5/16]

"'The Brothers Bloom,' Rian Johnson's follow-up to his kiddie-noir 'Brick,' prances about with a virtual 'WWWAD?' - What Would Wes Anderson Do? - emblazoned on its every frame," writes Nick Schager at Screengrab. "Taking his debut's affectations to their ultimate extreme, Johnson's film is a con man saga in which every symmetrical composition, whip pan, folksy song, hand-written title card, and bubbly, droll caricature seems meticulously modeled after those found in Anderson's oeuvre, a connection furthered by the focus here on close but at-odds siblings."

"'The Brothers Bloom' may turn out to be 2009's biggest disappointment, which will be a testament to both its ambitions and its shortcomings," finds Benjamin Strong in the L Magazine. "Rian Johnson's tale of grifter siblings with opposing temperaments (Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody) toured the festival circuit last fall, but its release has been delayed until the start of summer blockbuster season. It would be a shame if audiences looking for air-conditioned diversions were to pass on Johnson's loopy picture; and a hoot if they should stumble into it mistakenly."

"Combining the comic caper film with a calculatedly offbeat," writes Andrew Schenker in Slant, "the movie gets both modes wrong, missing the heady thrills expected of the former while failing to establish a sufficiently distinctive comedic sensibility of its own."

But for ST VanAirsdale, writing in Movieline, "'Bloom's' most extravagant con might not be that of its swindling siblings, but rather just how touched you can be by something so weirdly inaccessible."

"Some will dismiss Johnson's second film as a self-conscious sophomore effort filled with literary references, as the filmmaker works to disentangle himself from constricting plot strands," writes Robert Wilonsky in the Voice. "But Johnson has infused 'The Brothers Bloom' with so much heart and beauty that one can and should easily overlook its discomfiting moments. The truth is, the film's even more profound and touching upon second viewing, once you've dispensed with the genre affectations and gotten in touch with the filmmaker's affection for his characters."

"We've only just finished defending writer-director Rian Johnson from charges of stuntiness in his 2005 high-school noir, 'Brick,' but maybe he's the wrong pony to bet on," suggests Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out New York. "'The Brothers Bloom' reveals a limited formal artist who relies on cutesy montages and a Cat Stevens song to glom onto borrowed emotion."

"Where the film's men fail," writes Alonso Duralde for MSNBC, "the women more than take up the slack. [Rinko] Kikuchi gives an inspired performance that made me laugh early and often; it's easily one of the most accomplished silent comedy turns in talking pictures. And [Rachel] Weisz finds a new spin on the daffy-heiress character that's a constant delight. Penelope's having a great time even after 'The Brothers Bloom' stops being one."

For Simon Abrams, writing in the New York Press, this is "the quintessential sophomore jinx flick."

"Johnson's films have had an unusually divisive effect on audiences, with some loving their mannered eccentricities and conjured charms while others finding those very aspects frustrating and enraging." Mark Olsen in the Los Angeles Times: "Reading the dizzyingly diverse reviews from critics who saw the film in Toronto, one could get the impression that 'The Brothers Bloom' was 'a magic trick of a film.' Or that it was 'vastly more interesting in description than in the playing.' Or perhaps it was 'a gorgeous and delightful movie.' Or maybe it suffered from an 'over-calibrated hyper sense of self.'"

For Filmmaker, Nick Dawson talks with Johnson "about his playful directorial style, his nerves about following up 'Brick,' and his prominent online identity."

Logan Hill talks with him, too, for Vulture.

Interviews with Weisz: Capone (AICN) and Scott Tobias (AV Club).

Online viewing tip. FirstShowing's Alex Billington interviews Johnson.

Updates: "If 'Brick's' grafting of arcane detective story elements helped magnify its emotional life, 'Brothers Bloom's' grasping at con-game conventions keeps you at an awkward distance from the characters - even the conflicted Bloom, supposedly the emotional center of the story," writes IFC guest critic Gene Seymour. "One says 'supposedly' because the movie keeps shifting its center - and not in the manner at which such caper movies, from 'Beat the Devil' to 'Topkapi,' have excelled. Those movies earned their eccentricities by basically knowing what they're doing. With 'Brothers Bloom,' the assurance one found in 'Brick' is absent and in its place is, well, the coyness alleged by 'Brick's' detractors."

"The convoluted and crowded story negates any sort of thrill we could get from watching a con unfold, and no chemistry results when Bloom falls for Penelope (Rachel Weisz, sweet but an afterthought), the beautiful mark of the brothers' final fraud - but the general atmosphere of trickery is enough to expound upon the parallels between swindle and fiction, between the stories con artists construct so that 'each party gets what he wants,' as Stephen puts it, and the stories creative artists construct to allow both themselves and their audiences live another life." Michael Joshua Rowin in Reverse Shot.

Kurt Halfyard and Quint interview Johnson for Twitch and AICN, respectively.

Online listening tip. William Goss talks with Johnson for Cinematical.

"Johnson sets viewers up for greatness, but ultimately offers much milder pleasures," writes Keith Phipps at the AV Club. "The film isn't an outright con, but it's easy to feel a little misled by the end."

Updates, 5/15: "Rian Johnson's globe-trotting caper comedy 'The Brothers Bloom' is the movie equivalent of an elaborate juggling act whose performers keep dozens of pins wheeling in the air," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "As much as you admire the stagecraft and the technical skills on display, when all is said and done, that's all it is: a fancy, not-quite-two-hour stunt."

"'The Brothers Bloom' is clever, to be sure - you can decode everything from the opening scene to individual lines to the title of the film itself once you've seen how it unfolds, and it all comes together." James Rocchi for MSN: "And yet that cleverness doesn't detract from the emotional core of the story being told. Instead, it adds to it, with each turn and curve in the film made with a sure hand and a sharp eye with care, as if the movie itself were an intricate handmade gift."

Robert Abele in the Los Angeles Times: "You can see the bulging vein of forced creativity throughout 'The Brothers Bloom,' a romp meant to evoke an Old World dream of steamships, elegant deception and moneyed eccentrics but that mostly recalls - with ever-diminishing returns - the arch playgrounds of Wes Anderson movies."

Alison Willmore talks with Johnson "about Europe, Wes Anderson comparisons and 'Paper Moon.'"

Update, 5/16: "Johnson's characters exist in some nebulous universe that isn't exactly now and isn't any other time either," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "They dress nattily, stay in grand hotels, and travel by steamer or improbably luxurious railway carriage, but they've also got cellphones and do business with sinister Russians driving armored BMWs. This is either going to sound to you like a high old time or a teeth-grinding exercise in forced frivolity, and that might sum up the appropriate range of responses to 'The Brothers Bloom.'"

[Photo: "The Brothers Bloom," Summit Entertainment, 2008]

Tags: Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, Rian Johnson, Rinko Kikuchi, The Brothers Bloom