A Con Caper in Full 'Bloom'

by Brett Parker

Rian Johnson is a filmmaker who’s been making fun and fascinating films with the device of merging unlikely genres together. His first feature, Brick, was a mix between film noir mystery and the teen angst picture. Now he’s made The Brothers Bloom which is a gorgeous and energetic meeting between a con artist caper and a romantic comedy. While these cinematic cocktails seemingly appear to be clever stunts, Johnson wisely brings emotional flourishes to his material, giving us reasons to actually care about these characters. The Brothers Bloom is a wonderful example of this, making for a con game that is funny, romantic, and surprisingly poignant.

The film centers on a pair of “gentlemen thieves” named Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody). The duo started life as orphaned brothers who bounced around from foster family to foster family. To pass the time, they decided to conduct confidence schemes to swindle the simpletons around them and rake in the benefits. Over time, a routine formed where Stephen would script out elaborate psychological and theatrical con games using Bloom as his main point man. With the assistance of the lethal and muted Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), the boys build an underground reputation as the best con men in the world. But Bloom grows weary of such a fabricated lifestyle and dreams of one day living a real life with a real woman to love.

Bloom may have found what he’s looking for in Penelope (Rachel Weisz), a wealthy eccentric Stephen has marked for their latest scam. Penelope is a heiress who has lost her family and lives out her privileged existence in loneliness. Although she is quirky and callow, Bloom identifies with her isolated playfulness and he begins to fall deeply in love with her. This grows complicated as Stephen begins the play against her, which includes smuggling an antique book, a trip to Mexico, explosives, and a mysterious Belgian curator (Robbie Coltrane). Bloom wants so desperately to run off with Penelope towards a normal life, but in a con game where nothing is what it seems and twists reveal themselves on top of twists, normalcy feels like the last thing that can be obtained.

As far as con movies go, this plot has the usual grandeur of twist, turns, and slight-of-hand tactics that keep revealing depths upon depths of hidden agendas. Plots like these can be exhausting, but The Brothers Bloom pumps its structure with such style and emotion that we have a great time with these swindles. The film is certainly gorgeous to look at, whisking us away to exotic locales and basking the cast in elegant fashions this side of To Catch A Thief. Plus the twists are so effective because most of the time they are dictated by the emotional needs of the characters. The motivations behind most of the cons have little to do with financial gain but show the characters trying to make someone they care about truly happy. There’s a hilarious scene where the brothers botch a fake death act in order to spare Penelope from future emotional pain (the payoff is priceless) and Stephen’s final con is deeply touching and tragic in what it implies about his relationship with Bloom.

This gamesmanship is elevated by the fact that there’s a surprisingly touching romance baking beneath the deceptive plotting. Bloom and Penelope grow a deep affection for each other, for they both understand each other’s loneliness and unconventional skills as they help liberate each other towards true happiness. Brody and Weisz really anchor the film with their emotions, for their yearnings and emotional bruises can be felt throughout the film. I’m reminded that the best con movies show humanity sneaking in through the slickness. The Sting, for all its flash and charms, had its best moment when a lonely Robert Redford revealed his late night yearning for a waitress he liked. Ocean’s Eleven, if you peel away its style and coolness, is essentially the story of a romantic on a quest to win back his ex-wife. If your head can’t keep up with a cinematic con game, it’s important that your heart still has something to identify with.

Cinematic con capers are so much fun to watch because most of these plots can be seen as clever metaphors for the very nature of filmmaking and acting itself. Con games, when you think about it, require the same tools and formalities as movies themselves: costumes, set pieces, scripts, pyrotechnics, props, and most importantly, good performances. The Brothers Bloom certainly exemplifies this: Stephen resembles an enthusiastic writer-director-actor who wants to create a compelling story that hooks people on an emotional level while raking in millions for his efforts. He recruits a special effects technician (Bang Bang) and his favorite leading star (Bloom) to assist him and even throws an elaborate after-party for all the people that helped in his scheme. Bloom has an interesting fit into this angle: he’s the in-demand actor who’s bored with his profession and seeks a real life away from the spotlight. He wants to settle down and have a normal relationship, but so demanding is his career that normal romances are hard to conduct.

The Brothers Bloom is further proof that Rian Johnson is one his way to becoming one of the most fun and exhilarating filmmakers of our time. He’s like Wes Anderson in the way he creates off-beat and quirky landscapes filled with peculiar characters, fashions, and music. Like Brick, this film plays off of classical Hollywood themes in a highly-creative cinematic universe that exists in its own time. With two films so far, he’s proving to be quite a hand at smart dialogue, backhanded humor, literary references, and slick moods. I can’t wait to see the cinematic territory this man takes us to in the future.

It’s rare nowadays to find a film that possesses both a grand style and a grand heart, making The Brothers Bloom a rare triumph to cherish. It’s not everyday a film seduces you with gloss then tugs you at the heartstrings. While some of the plot complications can get dizzying and wacky, it’s the film’s damaged heart that keeps it on course to being one of the best films of the year.

BY THE WAY: There seems to be some confusion as to why the main characters are referred to as the Brothers Bloom when one of them has the first name of Bloom itself. The movie never really sheds light on this. My theory is that since the brothers are orphans and presumably never had a last name of their own, the child Bloom probably thought it’d be amusing to call himself Bloom Bloom. Stephen, ever the loyal brother, followed suit. That’s the best I can come up with. Anyone have anything better?