4.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.1.19
Fans of Jonathan Lethem’s award-winning 1999 crime fiction novel will be quite surprised by what director/scripter Edward Norton has done with it.
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| The spider and the fly: Thoroughly irritated by the persistent investigation mounted by private detective Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton, right), rapacious New York City developer Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) demands a face-to-face, hoping to make an offer his pipsqueak tormentor dare not refuse. |
Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, although contemporary to its late 20th century arrival, has the attitude, atmosphere and plot stylings of 1940s and ’50s pulp detective thrillers. Revering that style as a jumping-off point, Norton has retained the primary character — and very little else — while bouncing him back to 1957, and dropping him into an entirely new story that blends fact, fiction and noir sensibilities in a manner we’ve not seen since 1974’s Chinatown.
In a word, the result is mesmerizing.
Chinatown scripter Robert Towne ingeniously employed a “simple” gumshoe case to illuminate the real-world corruption and power-mongering behind Los Angeles’ bureaucratic theft of Owens River water, as ruthlessly orchestrated by civil engineer William Mulholland (fictionalized by John Huston’s Noah Cross).
Norton, in turn, dumps Lethem’s intriguing protagonist into the clandestine, Tammany Hall-style empire ruled by the even more powerful Robert Moses, the mid-20th century developer/builder who — by manipulating politicians behind the scenes — ruthlessly transformed New York City into his vision of a metropolis. It’s a fascinating slice of history, which Norton cleverly blends with the character that he also plays in this thoroughly absorbing drama … but it has absolutely nothing to do with Lethem’s novel.
The film opens at a sprint: Lionel Essrog (Norton) and colleague Gilbert Coney (Ethan Suplee), both operatives of a small-time detective agency run by Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), accompany their boss when he arranges a meeting with shadowy figures left unspecified. The acutely perceptive Lionel knows that Frank is up to something, and likely something dangerous; this hunch proves accurate in the worst possible way, when Minna winds up dead.
Frank was more than merely a boss to Lionel; he also was mentor, friend and protector. Indeed, all four agency operatives — including Tony (Bobby Cannavale) and Danny (Dallas Roberts) — emerged from the same Catholic orphanage, back in the day, where Minna became their father-figure.
His murder therefore hits Lionel quite hard, particularly since he is far from “normal.” Lionel is obsessive/compulsive and also suffers from an uncontrollable tendency to erupt in nonsense speech: often punning, rhyming and “clanging” against what somebody else has just said. He’s constantly forced to apologize for the “glass in the brain” that prompts such spontaneous outbursts; we recognize this as Tourette Syndrome, a designation not at all familiar to the characters in this re-imagined 1950s version of Lethem’s novel.
(This is perhaps the one detail that doesn’t work too well in Norton’s film, where most of the people Lionel encounters are impressively patient with his behavior. That made sense in Lethem’s 1999 setting, but I suspect average folks in ’57 would have dismissed — and shunned — Lionel as precisely the way he describes himself: “a freak show.”)
But Lionel’s curse also is his blessing; his acute awareness and obsessive attention to detail manifest in total recall. He remembers everything. He therefore picks at the minutia of what Frank said and did on that fateful day, trying to extract useful bits of information. Lionel’s colleagues, respecting his talents, encourage this fixation.
The threads quickly become beguiling, and somehow are linked to developer Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin, as the fictionalized Robert Moses). In short order, Lionel encounters housing activists Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Gabby Horowitz (Cherry Jones), the spirited leaders of a movement to save poorer New York neighborhoods — suspiciously, always inhabited by residents of color — from Randolph’s bulldozers.
Laura’s father, Billy (Robert Wisdom), owns the King Rooster, a Harlem-based jazz club currently featuring a combo fronted by a gravel-voiced trumpet player (Michael Kenneth Williams, clearly riffing Miles Davis). In the great traditional of film noir detective thrillers, Lionel knows he’s making progress when he attracts the wrong sort of attention from a pair of thugs (Fisher Stevens and the impressively hulking Radu Spinghel).
Noir protagonists almost always are brooding, attitude-laden, trench coat-wearing gumshoes with a significant physical presence. The fascination of Norton’s performance derives from the fact that Lionel has none of these qualities; he’s slight, frequently irritating — due to his condition — and self-defensively apologetic. He also wears his heart on his sleeve; he’s incapable of ceasing the relentlessly self-analysis that makes him painfully — yet endearingly — vulnerable.
We can’t help laughing at Lionel’s constant tics, twitches and tremors, despite feeling guilty for doing so. It’s impossible to react otherwise; Norton is funny. But he also makes Lionel quite helpless, often at the worst possible moment. Norton’s all-in performance is thoroughly compelling; Lionel is the ultimate tragic figure, driven by a mission that he fully recognizes is becoming more dangerous by the moment.
Baldwin is equally masterful as a Machiavellian manipulator: capable of switching from seductive charm to threatening ferocity in the blink of an eye. Baldwin is perfect in such roles, and has been ever since his scene-stealing cameo as the fearsome “motivator” during the opening of 1992’s film adaptation of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.
Baldwin’s Moses Randolph has the malevolent, hovering intensity of an old-school political mover and shaker who couldn’t care less what the “little people” think of him; they’re utterly insignificant. (The narcissistic Trumpian megalomania that Baldwin brings to the role probably is no accident.)
Although much of this film takes place late at night, amid darkened and threatening streets, Randolph mostly inhabits a realm of sunlight and sterility. This juxtaposition is handled brilliantly by cinematographer Dick Pope, whose “old-style cinema” lushness is informed equally by noir-drenched, 1950s B-films and (as he explains) photographers such as Robert Frank, Saul Leiter and Vivian Maier.
Mbatha-Raw’s Laura is the antithesis of Randolph’s callous brutality; she’s the epitome of gentleness, sensitivity and patience. Indeed, she’s rather too good to be true, and it’s to Mbatha-Raw’s credit, that Laura nonetheless remains credible. She shares several stand-out scenes with Norton, none better than the deeply poignant moment when Laura coaxes Lionel to dance as the King Rooster combo delivers a soft little ballad, and he discovers that music can calm his rages.
Similarly, the trumpeter’s wilder, Miles Davis/Dizzy Gillespie-esque stratospheric improv solos make poor Lionel’s verbal riffing even more frantic. Later, when the two men unexpectedly bond, “Trumpet Man” — he’s never given a name — commiserates with Lionel, knowing full well what it feels like to have a mind that refuses to shut down.
But, Lionel replies forlornly, at least you have the means to express and release it.
Which brings us to this film’s other stand-out character: its music, and Norton’s sublime use of same. Daniel Pemberton’s underscore opens with throbbing intensity — during the initial sequence, when Lionel and Gilbert try to save their boss — highlighted by fidgety drums that evoke the cacophony roiling in Lionel’s brain. Later, Pemberton’s tone shifts just as stirringly into emotional warmth, when Laura and Lionel are drawn to each other.
Unlike the monotony of too many of today’s slap-dash synth scores, Pemberton supplies distinct character themes: a simple piano melody that echoes Lionel’s sense of isolation; and a more luxuriously elegant ballad for Laura, reflecting her passionate desire to bring hope to the disenfranchised neighborhoods soon to be swept away by Randolph.
The true prize is Wynton Marsalis, who ghosts all of Williams’ trumpet solos: most evident during the aforementioned sequence in the King Rooster Club, when we’re treated to two full combo performances. Pure magic.
(Norton’s long-established devotion to jazz also surfaced in several of his earlier films, notably 1998’s Rounders and 2001’s The Score.)
Leslie Mann is memorable as Frank’s impatient and condescending widow, Julia; Josh Pais is appropriately smarmy as Randolph’s sleazy “fixer,” William Lieberman. The always beguiling Willem Dafoe has the most mysterious role, as an idealistic architect who — rather oddly — has become a disheveled social outcast.
Although Norton’s film runs an ambitious 144 minutes, he and editor Joe Klotz never let our attention wander. Lionel, as a character, is captivating enough to carry matters on his own; the fact-based Moses/Randolph plotline is equally fascinating. Put them together, as Norton has done so ingeniously, and the result is can’t-miss.
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