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The Brothers Bloom

United States

2008

114 Min
Color
2.40:1
Czech, French, Japanese, English
  • Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
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DIR Rian Johnson

EXEC Douglas Hansen, Wendy Japhet

PROD Ram Bergman, James D. Stern

SCR Rian Johnson

DP Steve Yedlin

CAST Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rinko Kikuchi, Rachel Weisz, Maximilian Schell, Nora Zehetner, Zachary Gordon, Andy Nyman, Max Records, Ricky Jay, Robbie Coltrane, Noah Segan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas

ED Gabriel Wrye

PROD DES Jim Clay

MUSIC Nathan Johnson

London (Gala), Toronto (Special Presentations), San Sebastián (Out of Competition), AFI FEST (Special Screenings), Stockholm (Competition)

Synopsis

Brothers – older Stephen and three years junior Bloom – have been con artists since they were kids. Stephen is the mastermind, for who the intricacy of the story used in the con is as important as the positive outcome of the swindle. Bloom is the main character of Stephen’s stories, the character he considers the anti-hero. As adults, they travel the world and never enlist the same people twice in their cons, except for their consistent sidekick, the mysterious and primarily silent Bang Bang, a Japanese woman who just appeared in their lives one day and who has a penchant for blowing things up. As Bloom hits his mid-thirties, he wants to quit the business as he is losing his own identity to that of the characters he portrays; he doesn’t know anymore what is real and what is make-believe. Stephen talks him into one last con, the mark to be the eccentric, lonely but beautiful New Jersey heiress, Penelope Stamp. Penelope’s primary past-time in life is to, as she calls it, “borrow hobbies”: when she sees something she likes, she learns how to do it solely through reading books. As the brothers go through their final con on Penelope, three main problems may occur to thwart the plan. First, the brothers’ former mentor and now arch enemy, Diamond Dog, may exact his long awaited revenge on the brothers. Second, Penelope may end up being more unpredictable than all their former marks. And third, Bloom, who has let love slip by in his life, may fall for Penelope. But through the process, no one ever really knows who is conning who. –IMDb

Director

Original

Rian Johnson

Rian Craig Johnson (born December 17, 1973) is an American writer and director, who won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with his debut feature, Brick.

Johnson was born in Maryland. He was raised in San Clemente, California, and attended the high school where Brick was predominantly filmed. He then attended the University of Southern California and graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1996.

In addition to his film work, Johnson is also a folk singer and banjoist. Some of his songs can be found on his website.

His brother is well-known music producer Aaron Johnson. His cousin, Nathan Johnson, composed the score for Brick and The Brothers Bloom. Rian and Nathan make up a folk duo called The Preserves. Other cousins, including Zachary and Marke Johnson, have been involved in design and illustration work relating to Rian’s films. —wikipedia 

Wall

Displaying 4 of 43 wall posts.
Picture of Andre Rehal

Andre Rehal

14May13

It felt like a Wes Anderson film for some reason with all of the quirkiness, and was well shot with great performances but for some reason I found myself not caring about any of the characters.

Picture of orangey

orangey

12Dec12

The only consoling idea is that needed to be as bad as it so that Looper was be as good as it is

Picture of galuh indri

galuh indri

7Dec12

Bloom: Wish you had a bigger audience. Stephen: You're the only audience I ever need.

Picture of William Low

William Low

18Sep12

Starts up fashionably and very interesting,until it become a little tedious and predictable. But still I enjoyed this immensely.

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Displaying 5 of 392 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.

Fantastic Fest 2008: The Brothers Bloom

By Twitchfilm.com on May 17, 2011
Sure, this is coming to you a couple days after the festival ended but because they’re showing three films from the festival today at the Alamo Drafthouse for free I think I still have an open window to
read on Twitchfilm.com

TIFF Review: THE BROTHERS BLOOM

By Twitchfilm.com on May 17, 2011
After the cult success of Rian Johnson’s debut feature, the stylish high-school noir, Brick, A-list stars and a much bigger budget were sure to follow. The Brothers Bloom was filmed in a variety European
read on Twitchfilm.com

TIFF Review: THE BROTHERS BLOOM

By Twitchfilm.net on July 16, 2010
After the cult success of Rian Johnson’s debut feature, the stylish high-school noir, Brick, A-list stars and a much bigger budget were sure to follow. The Brothers Bloom was filmed in a variety European
read on Twitchfilm.net

Fantastic Fest 2008: The Brothers Bloom

By Twitchfilm.net on July 16, 2010
Sure, this is coming to you a couple days after the festival ended but because they’re showing three films from the festival today at the Alamo Drafthouse for free I think I still have an open window to
read on Twitchfilm.net

Lists

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Reviews

Displaying 4 of 5

JOHNSON SPINS A YARN ABOUT SPINNING YARNS

By PARIS MTN SCOUT on June 4, 2011

This movie is a con.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM purports to be a heist movie, a “who’s conning who?” trick, an homage to George Roy Hill’s THE STING (1973) or Frank Oz’s DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988…  read review

A Written Life

By Hunter Duesing on July 26, 2010

“There is no such thing as an unwritten life, only a badly written one.”  read review

A Character Movie about Characters (short review)

By PaperSo​ap on March 17, 2010

I find it surprising that so many people had “expectations” about this film. Did everyone forget how campy Brick was? I don’t even know its being called a masterpiece, not to say that Brick was a bad…  read review

RIAN JOHNSON CONTINUES TO "BLOOM"

By Jesse Savin on January 29, 2010

Excuse my pun, please! But bad puns aside, the fact is that about four days after watching Rian Johnson’s follow-up to his masterwork Brick I can’t shake it’s scenes from the forefront of my overactive…  read review

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