Saturday, August 27, 2011

Brighten Rock: Noir, Noirer, Noirish

"Brighten Rock" is film noir at its darkest, but also happens to be about the brightest of subjects: miracles. Based on a Graham Greene novel about a small time hood who's a big time psychopath, the movie moves the timetable from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike Sean Riley is the gangster whose involvement with Rose, (Andea Riseborough), a teen-aged witness to his crime, serves as the heart of the unsettling plot.
Everyone but the naive Rose is out for themselves in this story and that includes the hard-bitten owner of the tea shop (Helen Mirren) where she works.
"Brighten Rock" is not a great movie. What kept the Movie Slut on the edge of her seat was her concern for Rose, who hobbled, sometimes literally, on the edge of a rocky cliff.
Supposedly the end of the movie is a departure from the book but the MS thinks it works brilliantly. After all, miracles do happen.

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