Robert Pattinson and Sarah Gadon
COSMOPOLIS (R) This is more like it. Earlier this year, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, based on Christopher Hampton’s play about Freud and Jung, was released and, though it featured strong performances, the overall result was stiff. Cosmopolis, based on Don DeLillo’s novel, finds Cronenberg at his fiercest, working with complex themes about the twin viruses of information and global capitalism. The plot is simple enough: a 28-year-old tycoon, Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), wants a haircut and is chauffeured through the city in his white stretch limousine to the barbershop. The president is in town, however, and the streets are clogged with commuters, anarchist/anti-capitalist protestors and other fat cats in their limos. At first, Eric is oblivious and uncaring of the world beyond his tinted windows. All he sees are the patterns in the financial markets, using the info to leverage himself against the world. He’s a ruthless genius at maintaining his kingdom, but he’s blind to the doomsday about to befall. As his fortune vanishes, he meets with various associates in his limo and begins making sense of his personal apocalypse.
Cronenberg has a brilliant ability to infect his adaptations with his own obsessions and themes. The Fly, Naked Lunch and Crash were all based on well-known secondary sources, but they felt completely his own. Cosmopolis, predominantly set within the claustrophobic confines of a limo, is another of Cronenberg’s relentlessly unflinching examinations of aberrant visionaries moving through a world where madness and rationalism are entwined and psychopathy is just the next evolutionary leap. What separates Cronenberg from other filmmakers who share a dark sensibility is his intelligence and brutal humanism. For all of his attraction to working with metaphors of transformative violence and biomechanical deviancy, Cronenberg is ultimately a satirical moralist in the tradition of William S. Burroughs. He examines humanity with clear eyes and embraces the paradoxes of modern existence, unwavering particularly when observing ugliness. Pattinson is a revelation: reptilian at first, then more recognizably human near the end, though still repulsive and clueless. He’s a tourist in his own life. Samantha Morton entrances with her own magnetic otherworldliness as Eric’s all-seeing mentor and Paul Giamatti grounds the movie with his lumpy vulnerability. Cronenberg may be close to 70 years old, but this film is charged with the energy and bravery of a serious artist half his age. There’s still no one like him, and this ranks with his best work.
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