Brick/YMMV


 * Alternative Character Interpretation: There are multiple ways to read just about everybody.
 * Awesome Music: It's an odd example, but there's something deeply thrilling about Laura's calm, self-assured recitation of "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze."
 * Harsher in Hindsight:  Kara's "You better be sure you wanna know what you wanna know." Quite a bit of the movie, in fact.
 * Magnificent Bastard:
 * The protagonist Brendan is a Magnificent Bastard playing the part of an Ordinary High School Student playing the part of a Hardboiled Detective playing the part of a Magnificent Bastard. Where this cycle begins and ends is an exercise left entirely up to the viewer, but hell if Brendan doesn't keep the wheel turning.
 * Tear Jerker:
 * "Nine out of ten."
 * The moment when Brendan finally cracks. No subdued weeping or single tears here; full-on, helpless, body-shaking sobbing.
 * The Woobie:
 * Even before Emily dies, she's terrified, over her head, and without anyone she really trusts.
 * Dode.
 * Brendan is more of a Jerkass Woobie, between his treatment of Emily and Kara, his cruelty to Dode, and, but he gets put through the wringer.
 * Brendan is more of a Jerkass Woobie, between his treatment of Emily and Kara, his cruelty to Dode, and, but he gets put through the wringer.