Liverpool Sound And Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Edward Norton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Willem Defoe, Bruce Willis, Ethan Suplee, Cherry Jones, Dallas Roberts, Josh Pais, Radu Springhel, Fisher Stevens, Peter Gray Lewis, Robert Wisdom, Michael Kenneth Williams, Isaiah J. Thompson, Russell Hall, Joe Farnsworth, Jerry Weldon, Eric Berryman, Nelson Avidon.

The art of adaption may lay in the prospect of change, of finding another way to describe the heart being fulfilled and the mind being able to reflect on the need for stimulation; occasionally this approach works in cinema, sometimes it fails and bombs, the memory of what came before holding a tight rein on the audience’s appreciation.

Adaption though must be sincere, it must ring true to the crowd, it can change, even adulterated, but it must arguably never be taken for granted; and if it is altered, modified, it must not stray from the original point, that of the artist’s voice.

In the hands of anyone else, Jonathan Letham’s Motherless Brooklyn could have been one that the adaption was left to flounder, the intensity of the piece dealt with less determination than would have been acceptable to the fans of the novel. However, for Edward Norton it has become an endeavour of passion, and even in transformation of the piece for the then current 1990s to a late 1950s background, the film stands out as being an exemplary example of the Noir genre.

What Edward Norton also brings to the table, this time in the lead role of Lionel Essrog, is the insight of the condition of Tourette’s, the tics, the touches, the outbursts and the swearing, all given their rightful place and thankfully not dismissed, not relegated to the point in which the audience believes it is just an addition to capture headlines in the press and generate a laugh at the sufferer’s pain.

This incredibly touching portrayal of a person with Tourette’s gives the film its leading edge, the platform in which the sensational cast rallies around, and with it then becomes send nature as the film explores the subjects of racism, government mismanagement and stigma, all set against the brutality of the removal of the Brooklyn slums and the dubious acts of gentrification.

For Edward Norton this film frames the nature of the man, as well as the actor, an absolute professional on all counts, one who throws everything into the performance, and why his films always seem to catch the eye. With superb additional performances by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Ethan Suplee and Cherry Jones, Motherless Brooklyn should now be seen as one of the great Noir thrillers of its time. A film of outstanding virtue. 

Ian D. Hall