Cosmopolis sees Robert Pattinson breaking out of the shackles of the Twilight franchise by way of David Cronenberg. Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a twenty-something billionaire, a man whose whole life is dominated by his business, and his business is playing the world’s markets.
On the day the film takes place, he takes a trip across New York to get his hair cut, something that might frighten those who seem to adore Pattinson’s Twilight style, and as he sits in the back of a hi-tech limo, waiting for the President, “Which one?” Eric asks, to stop cluttering up the roads, various individuals enter his car, and give him briefings mixed with monologues about the world, their characters, and them in the eyes of Eric.
Eric, who throughout the film is as cold and isolated, and unsure what normal human conversation is in the same way that Mark Zuckerberg is in the opening scene of The Social Network.
Cronenberg makes weird films, and whilst visually Cosmopolis may be one of his most restrained pieces, it is pretty crazy.
Eric has a strained relationship with his wife, a woman who speaks like an android, also unsure of how to grasp human interaction, and the two together deliver awkward scenes, where his goal throughout is clear, he wants sex.
It is clear because whenever they’re together, he just comes out and asks when the next time they’ll have sex’ll be. Other interactions come from his advisors, such as his theory advisor Samantha Morton, whose monologue amidst some insanity outside their bubble proves to show the other film outside of the one we’re watching, as Eric’s odyssey sees him lose so much without really losing anything, everything in his world is on screens, not physical, the world around him collapses in on itself.
If the film were to have a follow up, you could imagine a Children Of Men looking environment, with much more austerity. But that’s completely irrelevant to Eric, who rarely steps outside his limo all day, and when he does, things just don’t go so well.
The film meanders, gleefully so, from character to character, and situation to situation, whilst Eric remains unfazed by everything that any sane person would deem important, more focussed on a sliver of a comment his doctor makes early on, and as characters begin to speak less like people and more like a screenwriter flinging out the undertones of what dialogue should MEAN, not explicitly say, the world of the film seems to go from weird to insane.
This isn’t helped when Paul Giamatti enters the scene as a 41-year-old ex-employee of Eric’s company, a man destroyed by Eric’s genius and need to constantly evolve, and wants to see Eric dead, by his hand.
The two men tak for a good ten minutes, where Eric suddenly delves deep into the existential crises that have haunted him throughout the rest of the day, that he thought about instead of the meaningless words his employees spouted, and Giamatti forms a full, complete human being of a character in mere minutes, stunningly created before our very eyes to have more than two sides.
A masterclass in acting from both performers in a scene that elevates the sense of threat with almost constant sight of guns, yet isn’t about any possible violence, but the essence of humanity, beyond wealth, beyond smarts, beyond sex, to the very core of a person, who they are stripped bare. And these individuals stripped bare make for some compulsive viewing.
Having said all that, Cosmopolis somehow walks an odd line, at times long and arduous, at times tight and focussed, it’s a far more dialogue driven film than even A Dangerous Method, and it’s not for the masses, with odd structure, a lot of weary monologues that don’t mean a whole lot, certainly not on first watch, and less of the crazy insanity that the teaser released online but months ago promised. Cronenberg unfiltered, given the opportunity to adapt a book which from all sources appears to be as similar to the source material as possible.
It is out there, it is strange, it is really odd, but it is also perhaps too slow, too meandering and too unfoccussed to truly appreciate. Thankfully Howard Shore’s score, reminiscent of Cliff Martinez’s Drive and Contagion scores is outstanding, and performances are almost unanimously great.
Cronenberg’s visuals are solid, with some nice shot choices, and a brilliantly realised hi-tech limo that oozes Wall Street-cum-In Time style without leaving its own style at the door. Cosmopolis is hard to recommend, casual viewers need not apply, and the notion of giving the film a star rating is irrelevant.
Even I can’t say if I enjoyed it. But it’s something you should really check out. Just so you can add your voice to the conversations.