Cosmopolis

My main reason for watching 'Cosmopolis' was David Cronenberg, a very interesting and unique director, who may have originated the body horror genre but his films are much more than that. They do disturb and makes one feel uncomfortable, but his daring explorations of challenging themes intrigues me and there are films of his that do move me (especially 'The Fly' and 'Dead Ringers'). His films are always extremely well made and he always did get good or more performances out of talented casts/actors (i.e. Jeff Goldblum, Jeremy Irons, James Woods etc.)

'Cosmopolis' also had a good cast going for it. May not be a fan of Robert Pattinson, but have seen and liked/loved a lot of Paul Giamatti's and Juliette Binoche's work. Howard Shore is Cronenberg's most frequently used composer and have seldom been less than impressed with his work for Cronenberg, 'The Fly' being his greatest achievement, his work unsettles but also really stirs the emotions. The source material is an interesting one, a challenging and fascinating subject depicted accurately and almost frighteningly so, but extremely difficult to adapt. Almost unfilmable.

Really do appreciate Cronenberg's effort here, and he certainly did do his best, but 'Cosmopolis' struck me as an interesting semi-failure with a number of fine things but an equal amount of glaring problems. Do agree with those that have said that the book should have been left alone, the subject is one worth exploring and addressing but there should at some point be a more accessible way of doing it.

As said, 'Cosmopolis' does have good things. As always with Cronenberg, it does look great. The photography is stylish and a good job is done trying to make a mostly single and confined location interesting, and at least the location itself doesn't look cheap. While nowhere near a top-tier effort from him, Shore's score is suitably darkly metallic and emotional, one of his more accessible experimental score endeavours, and the same goes for the healthy dose contribution from the collaborating Metric.

The cast, or at least most of them, do a good job with what is given to them. The best performance coming from Paul Giamatti, who is a powerhouse in the last twenty minutes. Those last twenty minutes are the highlight of the film and the most involving it gets. Cronenberg does laudably in the adapting stakes and it is a faithful adaptation, one can see influences of his previous work too, such as 'ExistenZ' and 'Videodrome'.

In my mind, and for others too, it is somewhat too faithful and the whole thing felt too verbose, too cold, too bloated and lifeless. This is particularly apparent in the script, which was in serious need of a re-write and trim, it is far too rambling and wordy that one loses track of what is being said and feels the need to rewind and loses interest too early. It didn't always flow very well either and did not always find it easy to follow with its use of over-complicated language that is going to, and has gone, over the heads of some. The story plods badly (with the first 10 minutes alone wanting one to bail), only coming properly to life in the last twenty minutes, and feels emotionally empty and at times coherence is an issue. Did not find any of the characters interesting really either, one never really gets to know them.

With this emotional emptiness, 'Cosmopolis' is one of the few Cronenberg films that has left me completely cold or found it hardest to engage with. The drama felt very stagy and the interaction between the characters was rather static, no matter how much gratuitous elements are thrown in to try and spice things up. One cannot accuse 'Cosmopolis' of not trying, or so in my mind that is, if anything it tries too hard. It did feel to me like it tried to include too many ideas and themes and didn't do enough or anything with them, any of them really. Like it was trying to say a lot in its ideas but doesn't really say anything on an emotional level. Cronenberg's direction is technically sound and precise but it felt like his heart wasn't in it or that he was out of his depth with the material. Could tell here that Robert Pattinson had come on as an actor, but still found him bland and in parts expressionless.

On the whole, a bit of a strange one. Interesting conceptually but the way it was handled was underwhelming, for me this was lesser Cronenberg. 5/10

Eric Packer, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager, crosses the city of NY in his limo to get a haircut.

All great artists, in this case, directors, have a bad work, and for me, this film is a splinter impossible to remove in Cronenberg's career.

There's no story here to follow, the dialogues are empty and sometimes pretentious, without substance that can be extracted from them, leaving the message of political and economic criticism completely distorted.

The characters have no soul, I simply couldn't connect and create empathy with them.

The photography made me scratch my head and thinking "why you did this?", I didn't see any credible reasons for using so many close-ups shots, or the sly CGI in the limo scenes.

Even Robert Patinson cannot save a scene from this film.

I'm convinced Cronenberg simply had a string of semi-conscious fever dreams and strung them together. I'm really unsure what was meant to be accomplished with this movie other than telling the audience: rich people are just like us- miserable people who are unsatisfied with their lives.

I'm not sure if I'm more amused or more disappointed by the reaction by so many reviewers here of this film. No, it's not your Hollywood production, it contains few digital effects, no action, not even your standard "Cronenberg gore". This is a novel, and is presented in a way that's similar to the novel; with characters and dialog. As these elements are revealed, and the story unfolds as it does, I was left with a very interesting and satisfying experience.

I wonder if many of the folks giving this a poor review, saying it's boring or confusing, are simply unprepared for what they're renting, and they blame the movie for not meeting expectations. This happened to me. I started the movie while tired and impatient for distraction. After 15 minutes, I shut the film off and waited a couple of days for the right mood to kick in (awake, curious, searching for intellectual stimulation) before starting "Cosmopolis" from the beginning. Some movies are an escape from the work, and/or from thinking. This is not one of them.

I don't like to give spoilers in my reviews, so I will only say to anyone reading, rent this if you're in the mood for a unique movie that gives you cause to reflect and think. And be patient- despite what some have said, I think the ending is exactly right.

Reviews thus far have not mentioned Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, or how Cosmopolis can be interpreted as a dream using Jungian symbology. Cronenberg's previous movie was about Freud and Jung, so it is no artificial stretch to assume that he would apply Jung to a story, or that De Lillo had also done the same.

In Jungian dream analysis, the limousine can be taken as a metaphor of one's self, one's course in life. Each visitor to the limousine ought to be considered an aspect of the occupant's personality, each separate and distinct. There is the intellectual who has been hired to "do theory,"the young one who has been hired to find patterns, the nervous security expert who has tested for system vulnerabilities, the visiting prostitute (profane) who is asked to help obtain "the chapel" (sacred). Each character represents an aspect of a single self. Throughout the journey to get a "haircut," (which is a Wall Street term for taking a loss), the outside security chief relays messages from "The Complex," which might be interpreted as the unified self.

I think this is clearly what Cronenberg intended. The fuller meaning of the movie resides in how the dream reflects the actual world, how it fits with the shared reality in which we all participate. How does this simple journey to get across the city reflect the pleasures and perils of existence? Can we really know the world, or can we only know ourselves? How is the main character a representation of the whole world, which has a kind of self, too? Does the ending of the movie reflect an outcome that is metaphorically plausible as an integration of macroeconomic, political, human forces shaping history?

Cosmopolis is an intellectual work, carefully crafted, and not at all pretentious, as some have said.