After a phone call from his ex-girlfriend, teenage loner Brendan Frye learns that her dead body was found. Vowing to solve her murder himself, he must infiltrate high-school cliques that he previously avoided. His search for the truth brings him before some of the school’s roughest characters.

Rian Johnson’s directorial debut is a noughties neo-noir thrill-ride starring indie darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Crammed with the archetypal characters and hard-boiled slang of film noir yet drenched in the colors of Orange County, this slick, stylish cinematic love letter is a lot of fun indeed.