Motherless Brooklyn (2019) on Netflix
Lionel Essrog, a private detective with Tourette syndrome, works for Frank Minna in 1957 New York. When Frank is shot, Lionel picks up the case his mentor was working on.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.8/1066,779 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
New York City, 1957. Lionel Essrog works for Frank Minna, who runs a detective agency and once took him from an orphanage. Tourette syndrome often alienates Lionel from people, though his verbal and photographic memory helps in the work. Frank keeps one case to himself and brings Lionel and Gilbert Coney along to a meeting, where he bargains over documents with William Lieberman and his men. The men force Frank to fetch the originals, and Lionel sees him shot. Wearing Frank's hat and coat, Lionel follows a matchbook to a Harlem jazz bar and to Laura Rose, who works with Gabby Horowitz against the demolition of poor and minority neighborhoods.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Motherless Brooklyn (2019)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On March 22, 2018, a fire broke out in the cellar of the Harlem building beneath the film's set, killing FDNY firefighter Michael R. Davidson of Engine 69. Production was suspended, and the firefighter's widow later sued Norton's production company, Class 5 Films, for wrongful death, while Class 5 sued the building's landlord.
- Bruce Willis's role in Motherless Brooklyn was his final theatrically released performance, apart from a limited theatrical release for Midnight in the Switchgrass. He moved to direct-to-video films for the rest of his career before retiring in 2022.
- Edward Norton read Jonathan Lethem's novel in 1999, and the film, a passion project of his, took nearly twenty years to go into production.
- Norton emailed Radiohead's Thom Yorke asking for a song and got "Daily Battles" two weeks later, with Yorke's Atoms for Peace bandmate Flea on bass and horns. Wynton Marsalis rearranged it as a ballad reminiscent of 1950s Miles Davis.
- Edward Norton is the grandson of urban planner James Rouse, whom he calls an anti-Robert Moses; Rouse founded Columbia, Maryland, the diverse, community-minded city where Norton grew up.
- Norton replaced Lethem's conspiracy involving mobsters and Buddhist monks with one involving New York's fictional Borough Authority, adding Moses Randolph, based on urban planner Robert Moses, and dropping Frank Minna's brother Gerard.
- Composer Daniel Pemberton wrote the score for Motherless Brooklyn in less than four weeks and produced it in less than two, recording it at Abbey Road Studios in three days.
- The film's Pennsylvania Station scene was created using visual effects, because the original station had been demolished in 1963.
