Recently, I've ventured into the world of teen noir where the hardboiled detectives are wise cracking high school students. Brick, the Sundance fave, follows the investigation of Brendan into his ex-girlfriend's murder while the TV series, Veronic Mars has as its detective a fresh-faced girl of the same name. I can see why both have been praised by critics.

Not surprisingly, it's the movie which provides the most faithful rendering of 40s noir down to its miniscule budget. In fact, its probably the most "noir" of any film I've seen for quite a while. While watching it, I remembered what it was like to see the unheimlich at work in film. Places typically considered innocuous such as a high school or a wood-paneled family room are depicted as slightly menacing. Characters are recognizable at first glance, but upon closer scrutiny, the bully, the jock and the rich girl, are as inscrutable as the language they use. And the film draws to an unexpected but inevitable conclusion just as it should.

Veronica Mars seems to refer back to glossy 80s noir such as Fatal Attraction and Body Heat rather than the black and white films of the forties. Rather than employ a murky visual style to evoke mystery, the series employes narrative conventions with a gender twist. Rather than watching as a femme fatale seduces a hardboiled detective with her feminine wiles, a high school girl must wrestle with maternal desire for a mother positioned as the femme fatale. I did not catch even a whiff of the heimlich but I enjoyed watching Veronica use her wit and her logic to thwart the baddies.

(Disclaimer: I've only seen Episode 1 of Veronica Mars so maybe I'll see some play with the noir style but I'm not hopeful.)