THE ADRIEN BRODY REVIEW

By Nate Lee

BEST FILM: The Pianist Cheated out of his starring role by the inept director Terrence Malick and his indecipherable “Thin Red Line,” Brody had to wait (only) four years for a brilliant director, Roman Polanski, and a magnificent, compelling film, “The Pianist” to show what he’s made of – Oscar material. (“Jacket” and “Brothers Bloom” are tied for second.)

GREAT PERFORMANCES YOU MAY NOT HAVE SEEN:

The Brothers Bloom (a con artist who falls for intended victim Rachel Weisz)

The Jacket (a time-traveling inmate of an insane asylum)

Hollywoodland (a private eye investigating the death of George Reeves)

Darjeeling Limited (brother of Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman on a melancholy journey through India)

Liberty Heights (a Jewish man in love with a Catholic girl)

Bread and Roses (a union organizer in California)

Dummy (a ventriloquist)

Cadillac Records (Leonard Chess, groundbreaking record producer)

Summer of Sam (a bisexual punk rocker suspected of being a serial killer)

BLOCKBUSTERS:

King Kong (writer and explorer, opposite Naomi Watts)

The Pianist (Oscar-winning and Golden Globe-nominated performance as prominent Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman)

The Village (the village idiot)

The Affair of the Necklace (a no-account 18th-century Count and husband of Hilary Swank)  

THE REAL ADRIEN:

The Pianist

Both parents are Eastern European immigrants escaping oppression: his Hungarian mother from the Communists; and his father, a Polish Jew, who lost relatives in the Holocaust. 

ACTING STYLE:

Melancholy. Brody, with his exotic European looks, rightly chooses roles from another time and another place. He also bears a deep sorrow in those looks, so that even when he smiles he seems on the verge of tears.

BITS AND QUIRKS:

Open-mouthed, almost comatose blank expression, then deepening into sad acceptance. Strange pained broad grin. Folding his hands together in front of him. Delivering lines through clenched mouth. Sounds at times like the words are hard to get out of his mouth.

GREAT SCENES:

THE PIANIST

Rummaging through the Warsaw ruins, looking for something to eat > Playing piano for the German officer Hosenfeld > Trying to return the favor for Hosenfeld

THE AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE

Interrupting Hilary Swank’s making love > Helping in the plot to steal the necklace

THE JACKET

Conversation with insane inmate Daniel Craig about going forward in time > Helping fix the car > The therapy circle on the organization of the organized > Tripping out while in the drawer > Confronting, with Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson for what he did to him

THE BROTHERS BLOOM

Meeting the heiress, Rachel Weisz > Being found again by his brother, Mark Ruffalo > The double reverse

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