Stop and
think for a second, if you will, what kind of things Mothers tell their
daughters. To smile more, wear prettier clothes, make more jokes, you know, be
more positive... Not mine. Mine reads my film reviews on my blog and goes
“you can’t like every single film you watch dear, be a bit negative from time
to time”. I don’t even know how to deal with the comment and it keeps coming up
roughly every three weeks.
It is true
that when I started off I only wrote about films I liked. Because I had started
the blog to recommend films – in a funny kind of way it made sense to me that I
would write about the positive and not the negative. I have – even Mom agrees –
changed my tone a little as I have continued writing on this blog – and on
other websites - I have begun to veer
more and more towards films that have – for better or worse – incited strong
emotions in me.
Cosmopolis
is one of those films. And the strong emotion it incites in me is a deep sense
of disappointment. I mean, hand on heart, I have never been a massive fan of
Robert Pattinson (I haven’t even been just a tiny bit of a fan of Robert Pattinson)
but I wanted him to do well on this one. The plot looked surreal and
intriguing, I am a massive fan of David Cronenberg, you know… I had hopes…
This is the
story of young millionaire Eric Packer. One day he gets into
his limousine and orders his driver to take him across town, for a haircut.
This is easier said than done because this is no ordinary day; there are many
“happenings” along the way that will waylay him. In the process, Packer comes
across all kinds of characters; some known to him, some strangers… Some
friends, some foe… And as you plunge with him deep into this extraordinary
odyssey, you can be sure, this is no ordinary drive across town.
Ok so
here’s the lowdown. Basically the film is a poetic and philosophical essay on
our times, delivered to us mainly through Pattinson and a plethora of other
characters whose main raison d’etre
seems to be to demonstrate various philosophical points rather than to actually
advance the storyline in any way. I
mean, I say storyline. The film has the bare bones of a storyline and little
else besides. For the most part, Cosmopolis is a slow moving essay, read out
loud by multiple, changing voices. And how does the film solve the problem of
these multiple voices – by harmonising the tone and delivery of all the
characters throughout the entire film.
As far as
logic goes there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Even if you don’t
really expect a 22 year old computer genius and a Packer’s 41 year old mistress
(Juliette Binoche) to speak in the same way, ok, let’s suspend disbelief like a
good audience. The one main thing about Cosmopolis that really, really stuck in
my throat was the complete unnaturalness of every single actors delivery all
the way through the film. I have read a lot of online commentary blaming it
largely on the writing. And the writing is no doubt a part of it, it does have
some very strong, very valid philosophical points buried in there but it
couldn’t have been expressed in a more roundabout way if it tried. The aim with
the delivery was, I think, to make it slightly stilted to give a sense of a
sort of “end of times” brand of ennuie. The whole “problem” Eric has is that,
at 28 he has reached the top, he is at the pinnacle, and he gazes out in a
world-weary way around him (at 28. I know) and sees… Well, nothing good. And
more importantly nothing new. And at the beginning I was very tempted to lay
the blame on Pattinson’s door and an inability to convey subtle emotion but as
the film advanced, I realised they were all talking like that. By like that I
mean a distinct falseness that is almost certainly put on. The aim is probably
to firstly give an impression of the uncomfortable and “false” world Eric lives
in and is sick of, but also to stop us from “connecting” to the characters and
makes us concentrate on the contents of the philosophical discussion – a sort
of self-reflexivity, if you will. The problem is, where it should have just
hinted at this and left it as an almost indiscernible undertone, Cosmopolis
cranks the volume up to “are you nuts” and leaves it there.
Now let me
make another point clear. I usually love films like this. They are not
everyone’s cup of tea, I myself am not always in the mood for them. But
Terrance Malik is one of my favourite directors. I love loosing myself in a
good philosophical point. But the problem with this kind of film is that it has
to be very, very delicately balanced and very well thought-out. Otherwise the
film stops being a dialogue-driven philosophical masterpiece and wanders off
into the domain of pretentious drivel…
I am sorry
to say this, but I found Cosmopolis grossly miscalculated and utterly
unwatchable. I devoutly hope that in the future Cronenberg will stick to what
he is good at, i.e. making philosophical points via striking stories and
actions, not explaining the living daylights out of it…
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