Title: Cosmopolis
Year: 2012
Language: English
Country: French, Canada, Portugal, Italy
Genre: Drama
Director: David Cronenberg
Writers:
David Cronenberg
Don DeLillo
Cast:
Robert Pattinson
Paul Giamatti
Samantha Morton
Sarah Gadon
Juliette Binoche
Mathieu Amalric
Jay Baruchel
George Touliatos
Kevin Durand
Philip Nozuka
Patricia McKenzie
Abdul Ayoola
K’Naan
Emily Hampshire
Gouchy Boy
Rating: 4/10

A late evening KVIFF viewing, a complete full-house, but the film doesn’t live up to David Cronenberg’s esteem, which comes across as a big blow since I have watched all his films since NAKED LUNCH (1991), with the exception of A DANGEROUS METHOD (2011), and this latest nihilistic post-modern parable has been his worst so far, a self-indulgent endeavor with deadly hollow format.

The film actually is a one-day journey of a young tycoon (an asset manager to be specific), whose routine basically includes conversing different characters in his stretch limo (including daily health check), meanwhile he is desperately in need of a haircut, and eventually he ends up with a man who intends to assassinates him inside a sombre building, leaves me bewildered and vexed.

Not only the storyline never quite forms any plausibility in solidifying the grandiose milieu, the episodic conversations are detached from any possible connection from its first perplexing then dismaying audience, Robert Pattinson has exerted himself determinedly to enforce his dominance in almost every scene, but to no avail, most of the time, it seems that himself is not convinced by the words uttering out of his mouth. So are the star-studded supporting cast, each one occupies his or her own paragraph, which doesn’t worth their faculty, although Samantha Morton and Paul Giamatti are among the most impressive picks to enact a theatrical analogue performance, unfortunately the overall resonance is way too absurd and condescending to be taken into any in-depth consideration.

The screening received the most boos and early leaves during my KVIFF sojourn, it certainly can neither do Robert Pattinson a good turn out of his vampire-pale complexion, nor render Mr. Cronenberg his belated apogee in his grotesque career trek, also I doubt how the North American market will response to this one (A DANGEROUS METHOD hardly makes ends meet)? Hope it will not be a major setback to both Mr. Pattinson and Mr. Cronenberg.