BRICK & WINTER'S BONE

Double Feature Friday:
BRICK & WINTER’S BONE
Now Streaming on Netflix
5/5 Stars

Sometimes a film can come along and so perfectly blend two genres or tones that it creates its own special niche. Tonight’s double feature consists of two movies that have re-imagined film noir for a new generation.
Brick, the brilliant debut of writer/director Rian Johnson, transplants noir into a modern high school. All the noir staples are there, from the tough-guy talk to the femme fatale to the double-cross. All the characters, archetypes though they may be, really pop, even in short bursts, and the story never uses its high school setting as a gimmick. The danger feels genuine and the mystery is both exciting and heartbreaking.
The quadruple Oscar-nominated Winter’s Bone gives us our first taste of “hill-billy noir”. As in all the best noir, a tough-as-nails hero must solve a mystery by interviewing shady characters. But this time the hero is a 17-year-old girl who must deal with the meanest meth-dealing rednecks this side of the Ozarks. The acting is subtle and superb, making the threats and the tragedy that much more palpable.
Both movies are wonderfully executed experiments in drawing outside the lines, and in doing so giving us a new picture of film noir.