I’m so fucking excited to be writing about Brick (2006) this week. Not only is it a great movie and a favorite of mine, but the story behind how it was made is really inspiring and I could do with a little inspiration right now. I’m coming off a several day spiral of questioning my place in a creative world, and the way I work and what I do. I’m seeing the light now, but it has been dark, and the story of Rian Johnson’s rise up to the tippity-top of the industry is the extra boost I could use.
I saw Brick in theaters when I was 18, dragged off to a theater in Vermont with my boyfriend and his best friend who insisted that we all see it. At the time, they wanted to make films together. I, as usual, didn’t know what I wanted for my life, but I knew I loved stories and I loved the guys, so, I tagged along. Snugly tucked between them in the old theater (by the way it was built in 1938 and still operating today) I was taken on this wonderful ride I hadn’t seen coming. Did I just watch a film noir? A modern day film noir? A teen drama? Leaving, we were high on the thrill of seeing something special, something new, something different. We were going to tell everyone about it. And apparently we weren’t alone: Rian Johnson’s directorial debut grossed nearly $4 million on a budget of $450,000. And started his steady rise to fame.
Brick is a neo-noir detective story set in and around a suburban high school in California. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan, a loner who is pulled into the dark underbelly of a teenage drug ring when his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin) is put in harm's way, and ultimately turns up dead. With the help of The Brain (Matt O’Leary), a fellow student who is tapped into the lingo and relationships of the “Upper Crust” of high school society, Brendan sets out to discover who killed Emily and to take them all down.
This movie is all about conviction. The conviction of Johnson to make it, the conviction of the actors, and the conviction of characters. It could be easy for a “neo-noir set at a high school” to be corny, derivative, and goofy but that isn’t Brick at all. The stakes are serious, there is real danger, and the script isn’t silly, though at times it does wink at us and we wink back. These “winking” moments, where the movie feels aware of itself, only appear in the context of the plot and where they make sense.
Moments like The Brain needing to borrow his mom’s car when she goes to sleep, or Brendan telling the Assistant Vice Principal, “I’ll see you at Parent-Teacher conferences” before he angrily attempts to leave his office after a shakedown. These moments are necessary to the plot, and while they make us smile or chuckle, we’re never removed from the story and stakes. The world remains intact and we continue to suspend our disbelief.
The language of this world is dense and quick moving. For those unfamiliar with noir, you may find yourself like me, working overtime to keep up. After seeing the movie in the theater, it took me a couple more viewings to get the nuance of the plot, to understand who was playing who, and how the characters execute their cunning tricks. But that depth of understanding isn’t absolutely needed to enjoy Brick, because solving the crime before the characters isn’t what makes noir or neo-noir so enjoyable. It is the atmosphere, it is the wit of our leading cast, it is the relationships between them all that keep us engaged.
And the relationships are special. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives one of his best performances (if not the best) as Brendan, filling the role of isolated private detective. He is unassuming in stature but unafraid of putting himself in harm’s way to get to the truth, starting a fight with a hopped up football player to draw out the right contacts or taking punch after punch from The Pin’s drug ring muscle, Tug. He’s willing to suffer to get the right information. Brendan’s relationship with the Assistant Vice Principal is one of my favorites. The AVP fills the Police Chief role of a classic noir. Dragging Brendan in for unauthorized information and relying on him in the past for a couple big drug busts. Brendan toes the line with this authority figure just as our favorite hardboiled detectives of the 50s and 60s did.
Another standout for me is Meagan Goode as Kara, the powerfully beautiful theater kid who also operates as a small-time drug dealer. Brendan and Kara share a past, she preys on freshman boys, and their handful of scenes together smolder with tainted romance and give us an even greater glimpse into who Brendan was and how became who he is now. Most of these scenes take place in Kara’s dressing room where she is usually in costume with a freshman boy nearby to fetch her purse or whatever she may need.
We even have our femme fatale, Laura (Nora Zehetner), who gets involved with Brendan and his investigation not out of concern for him or those around her, but to carefully cover her tracks which have become increasingly messy. She plays her pawns and while she is not The Pin, the lead dealer, Laura is the real threat, manipulating everyone she comes into contact with. And when Brendan nails her, she lays one final emotional blow to Brendan that leaves him devastated. One she has been keeping up her sleeve just in case she needed to play it.
The complexity to the script and the stakes at hand for our characters give Brick the weight it needs to avoid becoming too overwrought. I sometimes have to wonder if Johnson’s limited budget is what we have to thank for that. I think of the Glass Onion which was a fun time, but had a budget so big that the artifice of it all was hurting my teeth. A lot of creatives will tell you that just like pressure makes diamonds and creative restrictions oftentimes create the best stories. For Brick, Johnson never gave up on his vision. He pitched the script for seven years before raising the funds himself to make the stripped down version we know. I ask myself, and I ask you, what if he had given up? Kept a desk job and thought what if?
Rian Johnson is my favorite, and his ear for stylized dialogue walks such a tight wire. Never more so than in this! The Brothers Bloom is another favorite. This is such a great piece, thank you!