Cosmopolis (2012)
 
I’ve long listened to Robert Pattinson’s protestations that he fell, uncomfortably, into the Twilight role, one in which his serious acting talent was never meant to reside. And I’ve kept a candle burning for his acting soul through five years of sparkly masochistic vampiring, and even turned a blind eye to the painful looking Water for Elephants, and now, finally, I’ve had a chance to see the real Robert Pattinson. And, well, he’s pretty good. It makes a change to be able to come out of the cinema recently and want to discuss what a film was all about. Moonrise Kingdom was quite clearly about nothing, The Raid was about, well, fighting, and after Prometheus, I was left feeling so hollow I didn’t even want to waste time theorizing what the black goo and blue man at the beginning actually meant. I had three co-watchers with me that night, but today, with Cosmopolis, I was all alone – and I have so many damn questions. It really is quite a curious film; it’s certainly not easy to watch, nor easy to like. Whole scenes don’t make too much sense, but then, this is Cronenberg at work, and one should not expect anything less. Although, to be honest, the last Cronenberg film I saw was A History of Violence, and frankly that was all rather normal. It’s a story about capitalism and greed and the meaning, or lack thereof, of money. Mix that in with some rather delicious and inventive comic moments (who knew a prostate exam and a water bottle could produce such an erotic scene) and you have yourself a thinker of a movie and something that felt utterly refreshing.
It’s nice to finally see Pattinson and his 6% body fat putting to one side his quasi-Mormon vampire morals, and getting some nice immoral tail, in several steamy, wordy sexchanges. This film is not for everyone, especially not Twilight fans, but it’s credible, fascinating and well worth a post-screening dissection! WHAT I’VE LEARNT
WHEN TO WATCH
WHEN NOT TO WATCH
POSTER QUOTE |
Go on R-Patz, impress me. 
Back to the leading man, who just about manages to straddle the often painful dialogue, with co-actors who are, unfortunately, a little hit and miss. Cronenberg’s script is incredibly wordy, stuffing complex and abstract concepts into his cast’s little mouths, and at times, it even feels quite Shakespearean. Even more so when a few of the actors fail to produce a convincing (or even coherent) performance, and much like an amateur Shakespeare performance, you get the feeling they don’t understand the meaning of their words – Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton and Paul Giamatti, however, show them all how it’s done, and there is some real real acting on show.
