Cosmopolis

So, I had been interested in seeing this movie for some time but had to wait until it was finally available at Redbox. I'd been hearing strange things about it and decided it was best to not watch the trailer beforehand (which is my usual preference under most circumstances). The movie found it's way to only 65 theaters last October in a small release and ended up taking in about $6 million which didn't quite make offset it's $20 million (estimated) budget.

The basic story: It's about a billionaire who drives in a limo all over NYC one day to get a haircut. The long story: On the surface, it's about this characters crumbling world around him as each encounter brings a change to his world.

Well the plot was adapted by Cronenberg himself but I have not read the novel, nor do I plan on doing so, therefore, I'm not a good source on how well it was adapted. I've seen some criticisms that the characters were not developed and there was not emotion, but my argument is that is exactly what's happening to the 'people' in this world that is being shown in the movie. I felt as though the story of the movie was not about any of these characters but rather as the world as a whole. Almost as if we were watching from the outside in despite it's intimate proximity to the main character. The plot is drenched with heavy dialogue and material and it's obvious up for interpretation. It is very possible that everything is way over my head and I'm getting something different than the intended symbolism, meaning, etc. I felt that this was a movie that forced the viewer to reflect afterwards and take from it what you connected with. Viewing the movie as a whole and reflecting on the choices within provided to be much more entertaining than going through the plot, in my case. When I viewed the movie, I was looking for a storyline and found the entertainment fell short. As I progressed through the movie, I gave up trying to understand any of it until the end when I could look back on it as a whole.

I was quite shocked at the pretty bad greenscreen car backgrounds in almost all of the limo shots. Who knows if Cronenberg did this on purpose to illustrate the fictitious world capitalism can create or something smart like that. The soundtrack was quite minimal in the first half of the movie and even had several scenes without any score. I wasn't a fan of that choice, but again it could have been used to illustrate a point. Towards the end, things began to pick up and I loved hearing some Metric songs in there. I was expecting much more stylized camera movements, pacing, and theme. A lot of the plot was cut into different distinct bits. While this was surprising at first, it helped to illustrate that the surface story was unimportant. One thing very evident, and kinda genius, was the eye contact, or lack thereof, and body positioning that was reflective of the character's dynamics. While I was unable, i.e. not smart enough, to figure out every character's dynamics and correlation to the eye contact and blocking, I did pick up on some. That took a solid effort instead of just putting the actors in the frame and rolling camera.

Since the story of the movie really isn't about the story, it does unfortunately constrict the actor's performances to a more subtle emotional level. I could be completely wrong in my interpretation of the movie however. This wasn't a big emotional drama, it was more about the character's relationship with one another and how it connected to the world. These actors had a lot of things to remember in addition to performing some strange scenes. Since almost all of the characters were quite unique an the dialogue was constricted and not really emotionally tied to the scenes, these was most likely a very challenging screenplay to pull off. Robert Pattinson created a very complex character that caused you to question and think about his actions to try and find a motive instead of simply giving the answers away for free.

In the end, the movie is not for everyone. This movie will leave many questions that will require your own interpretation and everyone's probably got a different one. I think it was about the world as a whole and obviously about our ties with economic gain and growth. I don't think it's necessary for or against capitalism but again it's probably all above me anyway. While the movie was very stylized and had very memorable moments, it was a long process and the most interesting parts was the reflection after the movie, at least in my experience. I know a lot of people don't like, even despise, movies that are ambiguous and give no real answers so I'd warn those to stay away at all costs. I was mildly entertained and have enjoyed trying to come up with my own (un-educated) answers but I will say I did feel pretty un-smart during the film while I was 'not getting' most of it. "Talent is more erotic when wasted".