Postmodern novels don't scream 'blockbuster'

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HANDOUT PHOTO Robert Pattinson cruises the streets of New York in a limo as corporate bloodsucker Eric Packer in Cosmopolis. (POSTMEDIA)

Perhaps Canada's most idiosyncratic filmmaker, David Cronenberg persists at being a cult auteur. Even his bona fide Hollywood hits -- The Dead Zone and The Fly -- seem like accidental successes, rare moments where the Venn diagram circles of Cronenberg's singular sensibility intersected with popular appeal.

The presence of Twilight dreamboat Robert Pattinson as the designated leading man notwithstanding, Cosmopolis is a movie destined to be consigned to the outer perimeters of Cronenberg's oeuvre, floating in the ether with the less popular cinematic offspring such as eXistenZ and Spider. One can only imagine a teen Pattinson fan catching an early screening of this film, only to be baffled by the spectacle of Twilight's Edward Cullen submitting to a prostate exam.

An adaptation (written by Cronenberg) of Don DeLillo's postmodern novel of the same name, the film follows Pattinson's billionaire boy wonder Eric Packer in his custom, cork-lined limousine as it inches its way through the streets of New York City.

Packer's empire is crumbling due to an ill-considered bet on Asian currency. Psychologically, Packer seems to respond by folding in upon himself, analyzing strategies relating to his professional and personal life with arm's-length dispassion. With his limo functioning as a mobile office, Packer receives a series of appointments, from a panicked adviser (Jay Baruchel), a worldly older lover (Juliette Binoche), and his company's "chief of theory" (Samantha Morton), discussing in cool, abstract terms the financial threat to Packer's world.

There are more physical threats too, apparently, which are a concern for Packer's increasingly estranged wife (Sarah Gadon) and his chief of security (Kevin Durand), nonplussed at Packer's insistence on being taken to a barber across town as anti-capitalist rioters protest, and a presidential motorcade stalls traffic in the city.

One of the threats is a mere prankster, a "pastry assassin" (Mathieu Amalric) bent on an act of clownish humiliation. The other is more deadly, a former employee (Paul Giamatti) with a potentially fatal agenda.

It is evident that Cronenberg loves the book. In writing the screenplay, he simply lifted whole sections of dialogue verbatim. And the cast does good work negotiating dialogue that is simultaneously heavy and ethereal. For his part, Pattinson, adored by millions, seems to have successfully drawn on the alienation that comes from sudden fame and put it to good use fleshing out a character in exile from common humanity, seeking solace in a simple haircut.

But if Cosmopolis the movie is unsatisfying, it is because Cronenberg was too faithful to the source material. Cronenberg has previously managed the trick of successfully adapting a couple of books -- William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch and J.G. Ballard's Crash -- that outwardly defied adaptation. He did it by investing his own imagination into the works, injecting his own DNA into the adaptations and proudly producing offspring that, it could be said, bore a resemblance to both parents.

In this movie, those sections of verbatim DeLillo text can make an audience grow weary. The pleasure of a book is that one may reread a line or passage at one's leisure to savour an idea, or at least allow it to sink in. Cronenberg's film version offers no such option, proceeding at its ponderous pace like a book-on-tape without the option to pause or rewind.

At least until it comes out on DVD.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Other voices

Excerpts of reviews of Cosmopolis.

(A) vapid, claustrophobic drama...

-- Richard Corliss, Time

An airless and inert expression of a capitalist kingpin's odyssey across a threatening New York City.

-- Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter

Cosmopolis, praise be, is flat-out marvellous, a 21st-century American horror story, haunted by "the glow of cyber-capitalism".

-- Xan Brooks, The Guardian

Threatens to soar and to be important, but it only offers flashes of lucidity. That said, there's a consistent air of charged, end-of-days menace running through the film, which Cronenberg handles with an unbroken sense of precision and confidence.

-- Dave Calhoun, Time Out

What we can't argue is that Cosmopolis is the work of a master filmmaker, one

who is determined to have us think about the ideas packed into the trunk of this limo bound for the furthest corners of the psyche.

-- Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Movie Review

Cosmopolis

Starring Robert Pattinson and Paul Giamatti

Grant Park

14A

109 minutes

Two and a half stars out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 8, 2012 D3