Throughout cinematic history the con-artist genre has owned a richly entertaining history, in which colorful and carefree men of the street outfox unlikable rich people in Robin Hood-esque capers. These clever protagonists possess an idealized sense of certainty and competence, never stumbling and always one step ahead. The classic example is The Sting (1973), in which two orphans of the world, the strong and silent Robert Redford and the goofily gregarious Paul Newman, team up to bedevil and bedazzle bad guys. This traditional portrait of conmen may be pretty but it fudges the facts of what is actually an ugly developmental trajectory. Who you are is heavily influenced by the attachment you experience as an infant, and the conman's proclivity for perpetual movement and role-playing is often the natural by-product of a fractured, if not broken, attachment process. These characters have no family except their poorly attached chameleon partners and they have no identity but the fluctuating, fleeting roles they play on behalf of cons - this is supported by long-standing research that correlates ungrounded roots with problematic personalities.
Most films have turned a blind eye to this heavily researched link...until now. With a refreshingly unblinking lens, The Brothers Bloom confronts the psychological reality that conmen childhoods do not equate with competent and confident conmen adulthoods. As this motif of the psychologically sound conman is turned on its head, audiences should prepare for a film that is uniquely thought-provoking and unexpectedly serious.
This film centers on two brothers, Stephen and Bloom, who achieve unrivaled fame and success as conmen. They are the Lehman Brothers of the con-artist industry, as things appear to be great on the outside but inevitably doomed on the inside.
Predictably, their conmen childhood narrative represent dirt-poor attachments: Stephen and Bloom are shuffled from one foster home to another. Each new town serves as another opportunity to experience life as an unloved outsider. They suffer a game of familial leap-frog during a developmental phase that the literature has highlighted as a "critical period." This was first uncovered when Conrad Lorenz, an animal researcher, induced a bunch of ducklings to follow him wherever he went - all that was needed was to replace the mother duckling as the primary attachment figure. The influence of this "imprinting" on personality formation underlies research on humans that suggest that failing to attach to a caregiver by the age of five predicts an inability to attach to anyone, ever. Such chronically detached people are found in the cluster B personality disorders in the DSM (i.e. narcissists, sociopaths, borderlines).
Bloom, the younger brother bears the brunt of the psychological burden, and although the film goes through the motions of a con - the attempted swindling of a rich heiress - at its cinematic heart is a discussion of Bloom's struggle to grip an elusive, unstable identity.
A sense of self is measured by what one does when nobody is looking, in knowing what one wants without being told and, of course, in how one thinks about oneself. An adaptive identity is expressed in a consistent role that acts in-line with clear values. A healthy mother acts as a mother whether she is in the bedroom or in the bar, and she knows to praise acts of selflessness, not selfishness. In this film, Bloom has a maladaptive identity despite constant efforts to scratch and claw his way toward an adaptive one, which the film cryptically calls an "unwritten life." His failings are littered throughout the plot and serve as road signs to notice on the path toward dysfunction and distress.
Road Signs:
Permanent Shades: Identity issues are often correlated (go hand-in-hand) with a temperamental dimension called negative affect (NA). Some people view the world through rose colored glasses. They see the positive side of things, view problems as opportunities, and treat adversity as a cue to persevere. Individuals high in NA are the opposite. They are stuck with dark and gloomy interpretative filters. Bloom expresses this outlook through non-verbal's. His shoulders slump, he walks slowly and speaks softly. He stares at the world through sad eyes, constantly rubbing them as if trying to awake from a bad dream. He moves as if he is underwater. This makes sense. After all, why rush toward an ending that is doomed for failure?
Bewilderment: Without a sense of self, being alone can be a perplexing, if not scary, proposition. The times in which Bloom is by himself mark extreme failures to cope: he never fails to end up hung over from drinking binges on the beaches of Montenegro.
Self-imposed servitude: Weak identities often lead to depence on others which often culminates in an inability to anything self-sufficiency. This vicious cycle is experienced to dizzingly degrees by Bloom. Failing to develop skills to understand and help oneself, Bloom becomes overly-dependant on others, namely Stephen. Indeed, Bloom wants nothing more than to write his own life, but cannot seem to detach himself from the life his older brother has written for him. Most of the plot twists involve the audience being head-faked into thinking that Bloom has abandoned Stephen's plan for his own. And in the end, when the final con blows up, literally and figuratively, Bloom fails at being his own author. In-between worried mumbles and paces, he reacts robotically to kidnapper demands. He does not predict what the bad guys will do, or hatch a brilliant scheme or, for that matter, save Stephen from the kidnappers. In short, he does not do any of the things that experienced conmen do.
Distorted Mirroring: A strong identity is built upon care-giving experiences in which infantile cries are met with consistency, accuracy and warmth. This parental responsiveness teaches a baby that what one feel's on the inside is valid, realistic and worthwhile. One can look inward for motivation and peace and, in turn, do things for the intrinsic reward. If rejection replaces this "mirroring," as in the case of poor Bloom, then external things like making money come to underlie motives. Indeed, as the bank roll of the Bloom brothers rises, so does Bloom's unhappiness. He wants freedom and self-efficacy and instead all he can successfully pursue is money.
In the end, Bloom arrives at a profound crossroad and the very first scenes of abandonment comes full circle. Bloom is given a chance to either assert himself or fold, while Stephen can either empower Bloom or continue to enable the sense of helplessness and dependency. Suffice it to say that old habits die hard. The last moment, when Bloom is enjoying the clichéd walk into the sunset with the pretty girl, seems tongue-in-cheek. The happiness is doomed to be short-lived as the pretty girl's attachment-identity issues are even more profound than that of Bloom. The filmmakers bravely show the audience the heavily desired happy ending before ripping it to shreds with backhanded irony and humor. This is admirable, as conman movies that resist the urge to con us audience members out of a realistic narrative are rare indeed.
