Based on a 200-page novel by Don DeLillo, “Cosmopolis” takes place over the course of a single day, but this is no ordinary day - it is the day Eric Packer orchestrates his own financial downfall. Our tightly wound protagonist, Eric is played by teenage heartthrob Robert Pattinson, who once again attempts to pole-vault away from the glum-faced corniness of the blockbusting “Twilight” saga; here, he is successful. Eric is a Wall Street trader and, at just 28 years young, is already a multi-billionaire: he notes early on in the film that not too long ago he was younger than everyone else around him. “One day it began to change,” he says. Now he’s just younger-looking than everyone else around him.
Eric wants a haircut, and requests that he be taken from the east side of New York to the west side, where the trimming shall take place. His over-protective bodyguard objects: the anti-capitalist protests surrounding the President’s arrival in town may prove dangerous for Eric, as well as a reported “credible threat" against Eric’s life, but Eric insists: he wants a haircut. He travels across NYC in his garishly white stretch limo, the inside of which serves as the primary setting for much of the film’s action. I say action, but the film is determinedly driven by its dialogue, which is about as easy to keep up with as a greyhound chasing after an artificial hare through the intricate passageways of a full-size hedge maze. But while you may not entirely comprehend all that the characters are talking about, you’re nevertheless utterly captivated by the way in which they talk about it - its obliqueness is oddly compelling.
Eric’s limo is quite the vehicle: its insides are decorated with rich black leather, the top seat serving as a throne for Eric to slouch in. An advanced touch-screen computer system stands at the side, allowing for Eric to keep tabs on the stock market while swigging back glasses of scotch. There’s a toilet, which slides away underneath a secret compartment once its user has finished their not-so-private business. The limo is an eerily quiet setting, allowing for Cronenberg to indulge in dead, awkward silence during those rare times when Eric ceases his incessant jabbering - not even the sounds from outside enter the limo. This provides a startling disconnect between Eric and the increasingly anarchic streets of Manhattan slowly passing by outside, which at times looks strangely, deliberately artificial, more like a back projection than a real-life background.
En route to the barber’s, Eric picks up and converses with a few business associates, some of whom are more expected than others. You may recognise a few names here. Jay Baruchel (“Goon”) steps in for a chat as Shiner, a tech-savvy computer geek, as does Samantha Morton (“John Carter”), playing Eric’s notably outspoken theoretical advisor, Vija Kinsky. Emily Hampshire (“Snow Cake") plays Jane Melman, Eric's chief of finance, with whom Eric casually converses in the back of the limo while a doctor performs a prostate exam on him during another daily check-up. “You have an asymmetrical prostate,” the doctor tells him. Eric looks puzzled, and ponders the meaning of this for quite some time.
I was shocked to discover that Eric has a wife. Her name is Elise, and she is played by Sarah Gadon (“A Dangerous Method”). Eric and Elise have apparently been married for a few weeks now, though judging by the emotional distance of their conversations you’d swear they’d never met before. Eric is frank with her: “When are we going to have sex again?" he hounds her in the back of a taxi cab. He later comments in a diner: “You have your mother’s breasts. Great stand-up tits." Moments earlier, Eric was having sex with his middle-aged art consultant, Didi Fancher (Juliette Binoche, “Dan in Real Life”), in the backseat of his limo. I never thought I’d see Juliette Binoch riding Robert Pattinson in the backseat of a limo, yet Cronenberg delivers.
One particularly pleasurable performance of many comes from Paul Giamatti (“Rock of Ages”), whose role I shan’t give away. He’s one of the few associates of Eric to appear in more than one scene, although his first appearance is so brief I doubt many will even notice him: he’s part of the outside world that Eric so blissfully fails to acknowledge. His second appearance comes during the film’s climax, which is set in a derelict tenement building and which puts a comical new spin on the word “handgun.” This climax is stupendously riveting, thanks in large part to Giamatti’s tormented performance, so much so that it works rather beautifully as a one-act play: I’d pay good money to see it on the West End.
“Cosmopolis,” like Cronenberg’s last feature, 2011’s “A Dangerous Method,” is one of the more cerebral works from the Canadian filmmaker, a far cry from the visceral body horror of his “Videodrome” and “The Fly.” And yet it is as disorienting a watch as any of his prior works, transporting us to a limo-sized world of rapid-fire conversations, passionless sex and brief spurts of grisly violence, and in which the cold and isolated Eric Packer is the hero. As Eric, Pattinson is a gripping screen presence, rock-solid on the outside and brimming with destructive self-loathing on the inside. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Cronenberg and Pattinson work together again: they prove themselves to be a ferocious pairing.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment