Motherless Brooklyn

If that sounds worthy, well-meaning and incredibly dull, I can only say that Norton makes it work, spinning it into a twisting narrative that, admittedly, does require your concentration.

The narrative and the characters are so interesting, and the whole theme...so riveting that Norton's immensely ambitious film succeeds as a compelling exercise in neo-film noir.

Motherless Brooklyn is a love-letter to the long-held focus across film noir on masculinity in crisis, but through Lethem's source material and Norton's deep engagement with it, something genuinely fresh explodes out of seemingly familiar material.

My only criticism is that it does take its time, because it's not afraid to indulge in its story...but those moment are far fewer than I thought, and the story is not hard to follow.

The rest is a sluggish film noir pastiche (the setting of the novel has been inexplicably shifted from the late Nineties to the Fifties) that aims to emulate the jazzy intrigue of Chinatown, but delivers only clichés and screen-chewing vanity.

There's something showy and calculated about the whole thing. Still, it's worth watching...

It is an interesting idea but doesn't translate well off the page.

Motherless Brooklyn may not be a sterling example of traditional noir, but its subtext is gripping in its own way. The victim of this crime story isn’t a dead man or a damsel in distress, but the spirit of a city.

Motherless Brooklyn is an ambitious undertaking. It's a big-city story that champions the people versus the developers, an important, ongoing subject.

Bobby Cannavale tries to save this movie, but Edward Norton tried to be the Jack of all trades, only to become a master of none. Huge problems of rhythm and tone make this film barely watchable. [Full review in Spanish]