Welcome to A-Z Movie Reviews. Every Sunday, for the next several months, I will be posting a review of a film in my home movie collection. How it works is, I will be reviewing movies in alphabetical order until I get to the letter Z (Yes, I do have a film that ends in Z). Now I realize there are many ways to alphabetize a film collection but this is mine so don’t judge me. This is simply for fun.
Since I began doing these A-Z Movie Reviews, I have been looking forward to getting to Cosmopolis starring Robert Pattinson. It is one of my absolute favorites of his, well, after the Twilight films obviously.
What it’s about:
Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager’s day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart.
This synopsis sounds so simple in comparison to what occurs in the movie. Based on the book by Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis is an exploration of one man’s journey from master of the universe to a complete downward spiral.
Cosmopolis is one of those films that makes you think. The dialogue demands your attention because every bit of it is important. I had never heard of the book until after the film was released and once I finished watching it, I immediately had to read it. I was looking for more answers because I needed to know more about Eric and the film left me with an unanswered question which I won’t give away because I don’t want to ruin the film for you.
After watching Cosmopolis, I realized that no other director, but David Cronenberg could pull this off. He wrote the script in six days and he nailed it. Granted he had the book to go off but still, based on the material of this story, it was right up his alley. David Cronenberg does the most interesting films, and the first one I remember watching was Crash. It was a twisted film and it stuck with me for years. Cosmopolis has done the same for me.
The special features on the Blu-ray take you on a journey through how David along with production designer Arv Greywal created the world that Cosmopolis takes place in. The setting is New York City and it’s during a time of civil unrest which is quite fitting for this current moment. There is an economic crisis going on, so the streets are filled with peaceful protestors and Anarchists. The most fascinating thing about all of this is the filming was all done with a green screen.
A vast majority of the movie takes place inside of Eric Packers stretch limousine and it was beyond incredible to see the behind the scenes. If you are like me and you like movie magic, I highly recommend watching the Citizens of Cosmopolis.
Okay, now that I have spent a little time talking about David Cronenberg, let’s talk about the cast which consists of Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti, Kevin Durand, Juliette Binoche, Emily Hampshire, Samantha Morton, and Jay Baruchel. Most of them only appear once except for Sarah who plays Elise, Erics wife of 22 days, and Kevin who plays Eric’s bodyguard Torval.
For the actors who only appear once, It had to take an incredible level of skill to pull this off. Each actor portrayed characters with such complex dialogue and Rob had to be able to connect with them all in very different ways.
Robert Pattinson is one of the most underestimated actors in my opinion. He is incredibly talented and if people step out of seeing him as Edward Cullen, they would be thoroughly impressed. The moment the film starts, my eyes are glued to Rob, okay yes, it’s partly because he is handsome but, it’s mainly because he commands your attention. Rob has a way of bringing all his characters to life and it translates to the screen in a palpable way.
He did a phenomenal job of portraying Eric from beginning to end. When the film opens, Eric is a confident businessman on top of the world. He lives his life to excess and is used to getting things his way. That’s clear when he tells his bodyguard he wants to travel across town just to get a haircut despite being advised multiple times this is not a good idea. Eric is used to being in control and as the film goes on, that control slowly slips away from him and he basically no longer gives a fuck about anything including himself.
What I enjoyed about Cosmopolis was it does a great job of dispelling the misconception that money makes you happy. Even when Eric had all the money he could imagine, he was not happy. He spent the entirety of the film searching for something to feel because he didn’t feel anything. It wasn’t until he started to lose everything that he began to actually feel something.
As we all know, Rob is our new Batman and if you are still not sold on his acting skills, I recommend checking out Cosmopolis.