The Brother review – bold London noir thriller

An intriguing anomaly: a London-set crime thriller boasting just enough storytelling heft and idiosyncratic style to merit investigation. Writer-director Ryan Bonder takes a borderline preposterous set-up – brooding Canuck Adam (Tygh Runyan) hides out as a Tate cloakroom clerk in a doomed bid to escape his arms-dealing family – then develops it to keep generating fresh perspectives on both the city and his characters. Thematically, it’s more Jacques Audiard than Nick Love: Adam’s relationship with a deaf dancer (Noémie Merlant) echoes Read My Lips (2001), the piano playing 2005’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped. (Again, it’s crime versus culture: we intuit that the brother who shows up is trouble from his brusque handling of Adam’s vinyl collection.) Not every gamble pays off – certain narrative backalleys remain under-illuminated – but it’s strongly performed and full of bold, eye- and ear-catching directorial choices. If nothing else, this must be the first neo-noir to unfold to a northern soul soundtrack.