Movie Review : Motherless Brooklyn (2019)
I never really understood the appeal of Jonathan Lethem. His writing is fine, but it’s not like he invented genre bending fiction. Other writers have been doing it better before he was even published. But that’s his thing and people fucking love him for it. I was counting on Edward Norton (someone who I understand the appeal of) and his impending film adaptation of Lethem’s breakthrough novel Motherless Brooklyn to help me understand what people see in him.
I was kind of disappointed.
Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn doesn’t have much to do with Jonathan Lethem’s. He kept the same protagonist, Tourette’s Syndrome-afflicted detective Lionel Essrog (played by Norton himself) and the premise of him investigating his boss’ murder and transposed them into a 1950’s setting. Norton also came up with a new story for the characters as if he loved the idea of Lethem’s novel ,but hated what he had done with it. It’s wildly different.
Motherless Brooklyn is…. fine, I guess? It’s well-crafted, entertaining and it definitely has heart. I didn’t feel very strongly about it, because the story it tells is quite unsubtle. The marginalized Lionel is thrown into an investigation involving the marginalized black community and they band together to fight off evil city planner Moses Randolph (played to perfection by Alec Baldwin). Lionel also falls in love with a black girl who’s way out of his league.
Applying this kind of Disney cartoon logic to two aggressively different problems like racism and a medical condition makes for neat story, but it completely overlooks their differences and respective frustrations with their marginalization. Lionel and Laura (the talented Gugu Mbatha-Raw) like each other right away, even if it doesn’t make any sense. He lies to her, uses her to further his own investigation and she falls in love because his Tourette’s reminds her of her own alienation as a young African-American woman? C’mon.
I believe that’s why Motherless Brooklyn had close to zero emotional impact on me. It’s somewhat of a fairy tale for alienated young men. Tourette’s will not make it easier to get girls, kids. It will make it more difficult. WAY more difficult.
That said, I really enjoyed Edward Norton’s performance. He was born to play a Tourette’s Syndrome-afflicted detective. There’s an aura of inoffensiveness to him. He looks like a guy who always gets the shit end of the stick and interprets Lionel Essrog with nuance and sensibility. You don’t just see the disease even if it obviously takes an overbearing place in Lionel’s life.
There’s a beautiful scene where he gets home and tries to pet his cat, where you can really feel the weight of solitude on his shoulders. The constant heartbreak of suffering from Tourettes is very well exemplified in Norton’s performance. It’s definitely not the problem. The other characters are.
I don’t know what I was expecting from Motherless Brooklyn, but definitely not that. I’ve enjoyed it considerably more than Jonathan Lethem’s novel, but I didn’t like it enough to recommend it to anybody? It’s not exactly boring, offensive or anything like that. It’s just a little bit too easygoing on the social commentary. It wants to be an important more, but the story it tells doesn’t live up to its ambitions. You should see it if you want.
Don’t expect a revelation, though. It’s as middling as it gets.
6.8/10
