Cosmopolis (2012)
Director: David Cronenberg
Country: France | Canada
Runtime: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Much of your reaction to Cosmopolis may depend on how you feel about Robert Pattinson, the 26-year-old British actor whose role as the abstinent vampire dreamboat of the Twilight series has made him an international object of fan desire (and, since he was publicly cuckolded by his co-star Kristen Stewart, of tabloid sympathy as well.). Yes, Pattinson’s combination of porcelain-doll good looks and narrow expressive range can make him seem vapid, his line deliveries wooden—but what better affect for a character like Packer, a master of the universe so callously remote from the world around him that he barely qualifies as human? Giamatti’s character, the sweaty, hovel-dwelling Benno Levin, summarizes his principled objections to Packer’s existence concisely: “You are foully, berserkly rich.” Casting Pattinson—an actor who’s also a globally recognized commodity—as a character who represents, in essence, the terrifying future of capitalism was a bold conceptual gamble on Cronenberg’s part. In some scenes, the bet pays off, especially when Pattinson is paired with a similarly sleek, remote actor (like Sarah Gadon, who plays Packer’s WASPy new wife with an Arctic chill). But when he plays opposite someone who brings the crackle of real human life to the screen—like Giamatti, who’s astounding in his one extended scene, or Juliette Binoche, who flits through too briefly as Packer’s melancholy middle-aged mistress—Pattinson’s limitations are on plain display. This mismatch in performance styles may all be part of Cronenberg’s grand plan, but it nonetheless creates an alienation effect that makes this 108-minute movie feel considerably longer.
In a live interview he and Pattinson did with the New York Times’ David Carr, Cronenberg suggests that viewers not seek to understand everything that’s happening in Cosmopolis, but instead just let the movie wash over them as an experience, the way flows of global capital—the falling dollar, the rising yuan—stream by on the screens that surround the film’s empty, anxious anti-hero. Because I’ve long been captivated by Cronenberg’s keen intelligence and highly personal cinematic vision, I took a strange pleasure in submitting to this movie’s stilted but weirdly poetic rhythms. But I freely acknowledge that for others, enduring Cosmopolis may be less fun than a backseat prostate exam.
Dana Stevens
Country: France | Canada
Runtime: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Much of your reaction to Cosmopolis may depend on how you feel about Robert Pattinson, the 26-year-old British actor whose role as the abstinent vampire dreamboat of the Twilight series has made him an international object of fan desire (and, since he was publicly cuckolded by his co-star Kristen Stewart, of tabloid sympathy as well.). Yes, Pattinson’s combination of porcelain-doll good looks and narrow expressive range can make him seem vapid, his line deliveries wooden—but what better affect for a character like Packer, a master of the universe so callously remote from the world around him that he barely qualifies as human? Giamatti’s character, the sweaty, hovel-dwelling Benno Levin, summarizes his principled objections to Packer’s existence concisely: “You are foully, berserkly rich.” Casting Pattinson—an actor who’s also a globally recognized commodity—as a character who represents, in essence, the terrifying future of capitalism was a bold conceptual gamble on Cronenberg’s part. In some scenes, the bet pays off, especially when Pattinson is paired with a similarly sleek, remote actor (like Sarah Gadon, who plays Packer’s WASPy new wife with an Arctic chill). But when he plays opposite someone who brings the crackle of real human life to the screen—like Giamatti, who’s astounding in his one extended scene, or Juliette Binoche, who flits through too briefly as Packer’s melancholy middle-aged mistress—Pattinson’s limitations are on plain display. This mismatch in performance styles may all be part of Cronenberg’s grand plan, but it nonetheless creates an alienation effect that makes this 108-minute movie feel considerably longer.
In a live interview he and Pattinson did with the New York Times’ David Carr, Cronenberg suggests that viewers not seek to understand everything that’s happening in Cosmopolis, but instead just let the movie wash over them as an experience, the way flows of global capital—the falling dollar, the rising yuan—stream by on the screens that surround the film’s empty, anxious anti-hero. Because I’ve long been captivated by Cronenberg’s keen intelligence and highly personal cinematic vision, I took a strange pleasure in submitting to this movie’s stilted but weirdly poetic rhythms. But I freely acknowledge that for others, enduring Cosmopolis may be less fun than a backseat prostate exam.
Dana Stevens
