If Chandler had written Rain Man...
Motherless Brooklyn
Cert: 15A2hrs24mins ★★★
Film noir – that knowing mix of murder, a crumpled private investigator in a brimmed hat and always, but always, a deadly dame – is one of my favourite genres. The classics – The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Third Man, etc – are in black and white, of course. So much better for the creative use of shadow, another vital ingredient. But every now and then along comes a modern film that uses colour and visual effects and yet still celebrates the genre nearly as effectively as its historic counterparts. Motherless Brooklyn – adapted from a Jonathan Lethem novel and written, directed by and starring Edward Norton – is one of those films.
Yes, it has a few things wrong with it. The film is almost twoand-a-half hours long, which is at least 30 minutes too much, and it’s a shame – at least for those of us who hope Bruce Willis has at least one good film left in him – that the great man makes such an early exit. But there’s so much still to enjoy here: the recreation of Fifties New York is deliciously convincing, Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s supporting performance as Laura Rose is a touching joy and the soundtrack – a mix of cool jazz, a Thom Yorke song and Daniel Pemberton’s hauntingly atmospheric score – is wonderful.
But there’s one other big obstacle that has to be overcome. The central character of Lionel Essrog, the private detective played by Norton, has
Tourette’s. For a disconcerting while it looks as if we’re in for Raymond Chandler meets Rain Man (yes, I know
Dustin Hoffman’s character was autistic) as we get used to Lionel’s portfolio of tics – the fidgeting, the repetitive touching, the loud and often very funny outbursts based on words he’s just heard. ‘It’s like a piece of my head broke off and kept joyriding me for kicks,’ is how the character himself explains it, but it does bring with it one distinct advantage: ‘If there’s one thing my painin-the-ass brain knows how to do, it’s listen and remember.’
For an actor as serious and committed as Norton – Brad Pitt’s co-star in Fight Club, of
IT’S A FACT Edward Norton was first spotted and given a job by Edward Albee, the US playwright and author of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
course – this looks like an invitation to go wildly over the top, but as the mystery begins to unfold he reins it in. This, we slowly realise, is going to work.
Lionel works for Frank Minna (Willis) at the sort of detective agency that comes straight out of noir central casting: wood-lined, glass doors, Venetian blinds. But Frank is more than a boss to Lionel, he’s almost a father figure, having taken him under his wing.
So when something big goes horribly wrong for Frank, Lionel takes it personally and determines – as someone always has to in film noir – to get to the bottom of the inevitably murky goings-on.
What ensues involves a box of matches, a Harlem jazz club and a deliciously complicated relationship with the lovely Laura Rose (Mbatha-Raw), who works for an activist group campaigning against slum clearances. This, we’re pretty sure, is where Alec Baldwin is going to come in, playing the almost Trumpian figure of Moses Randolph, a man with big plans for the city.
Lionel’s tics have always hampered his relationships with women – in fact, a female presence often makes things worse – so his battle to survive a slow dance with Laura without ruining it is one of the film’s highlights.
It’s partly Dick Pope’s cinematography, partly Wynton Marsalis’s haunting, Miles Davisstyle trumpet, partly our hope that slow jazz and the love of a kind woman will soothe Lionel’s misfiring brain. What a shame he’s been lying to her…
Too long and occasionally self-indulgent Motherless Brooklyn may be, but it’s also beautifully cast and very good indeed.
‘A box of matches, a Harlem jazz club and a complicated relationship’