Rian Johnson’s follow-up to Brick works like a con itself: as long as there’s a part of us that’s willing to be taken on a ride, we’ll end up feeling like we came out ahead.

A good confidence scheme hinges on the fact that, somewhere in his heart, the mark wants to believe something implausible. Whether through hubris or insecurity, the poor sap needs to think that they alone have the good fortune to stumble on the chance of a lifetime, or that someone out there badly needs their unique intelligence and charisma to make an easy fortune. Without that moment - where the soon-to-be-victim pledges himself to the fantasy of the setup — the whole ruse would come crumbling down, because it’s only afterward that he’s committed to his own delusion and willing to be taken for a ride.

In The Brothers Bloom, Mark Ruffalo’s character Stephen, the mastermind in this duo of gentleman thieves, knows that fact inherently. As he puts it, “The best cons are the ones where everyone gets what they want.” He invents elaborate schemes in which the mark gets to walk away with their delusions intact, and the brothers walk away richer men. Everybody wins.

Writer/director Rian Johnson duplicates this setup with the movie itself: an alternately silly and surreal adventure that’s larger and wilder than any real-life scenario could ever be. But as long as there’s a part of us that’s willing to be taken on that ride, we’ll end up feeling like we came out ahead.

In his previous movie, Brick, Johnson created an absurdly noir spin on high school drama, hard-boiled dialogue and all. In The Brothers Bloom, he imagines a quirky world of crooks too dashing to be true. But for all the melodrama in one or romping fun in the other, they both work because their characters are played with conviction. The consistent element between Brick and its follow-up Bloom is the way Johnson conceives of a world and sticks to it whole-heartedly. Like a good con, they require viewers to buy in to the film’s conceit to get the most out of them. Frowning at the stylized world of either film will only bar the gates to enjoyment, whereas embracing their fanciful realities will reward viewers several times over, and it’s up to us to decide if we want in or not.

For those that do, Johnson seems to take pride in making ambitious films for real film fans. They don’t pretend not to be movies, sticking to grounded characters and plausible plots; they tell fantastic stories for audiences to get lost in. From the outset of The Brothers Bloom, the pace is brisk and the wits are sharp, with lots of subtle visual and verbal flourish. The central challenge of a successful con film, a scheme that keeps the audience guessing, remains a puzzle to the very end. But it’s all built on the solid fundamentals of great performances: Ruffalo is rakish and always in control as the brilliant older brother, and Adrien Brody is sensitive and vulnerable as the reluctant criminal trying to go straight. Their largely silent-film style sidekick Bang Bang — she likes explosives — is hilariously mimed by Rinko Kikuchi, and Rachel Weisz is at her most fetching as the sweetly naive and eccentric heiress in their cross hairs.

Not that it’s for everyone, or a perfect film. From the opening sequence — a con man’s nursery rhyme that whisks viewers through the brothers’ childhood — you’ll know right away if it’s the sort of trip you want to go on. Comparisons may be drawn to Wes Anderson’s eye for detail and rapid-fire exposition, but calling this outright mimicry is unfair. If anything, it only exposes the lack of directors to compare to; those who give audiences enough credit to be able to keep up with densely packed film-making. Where Anderson’s aesthetic is often cold and sterile, Johnson’s shows an exuberance that’s easier to enjoy without ironic detachment. True, the pace never relents, and as the team travels the globe piling on double- and triple-crosses, it’s possible to feel like the adventure has left you behind. But in the end, it’s more satisfying to spend two hours trying to match wits with a con film than be condescended to by one.

The film also poses a larger question that makes Bloom more than simple novelty. As a boy, Brody’s shy, awkward Bloom could only talk to the pretty girl in town once his brother had given him a workable plan, allowing him to find confidence in pretending to be the boy he wanted to be. His choices were to retreat from a pleasant fiction to an unhappy reality, or accept the part of himself that wanted to be tricked just as badly as the rubes, allowing himself to be swept up in the tall tale. The same dilemma continues into adult life, for Brody’s character as well as all of us. The pair of con artists offer their marks something greater than real life, and provide a moment of truth when they decide to dive in and willingly suspend disbelief. Bloom doesn’t have an issue with the stealing, only the fact that at the end he’s left with nothing genuine to fulfill him personally. He longs to be the one who escapes with his illusions intact, to finally walk off into the sunset without immediately darting back into the bushes.

Similarly, the film poses that maybe all of us are in essence conning ourselves. Like Weisz’ character, we prefer seeing our lives as grand adventures as opposed to the realities that they are. If it’s only a matter of perception, and the circumstances remain the same either way, maybe a little self-deception is okay. More likely, the grand adventures only await those who fool themselves into thinking they can create one, and have the guts to go into them headlong. Perhaps people are only really happy when they invent a role for themselves that they enjoy playing enough to get lost in.

That seems to be one of Rian Johnson’s guiding principles in The Brothers Bloom. Even if we can’t live fantastic lives day to day, at least those willing to get lost in a yarn can suspend disbelief long enough to be taken for a wonderful ride. Certainly if you go in cynically, looking for loose threads, they might be there to find. But if you’re able to let yourself be conned by some cleverly executed movie magic, you’ll end up richer for it.