Can’t Wait: David Cronenberg’s ‘Cosmopolis’

While my other movie series, I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Film School, looks back, I figured I should place at least one foot in the here and now of giddy anticipation.  Therefore, Can’t Wait focuses on upcoming movies I, well, can’t wait to see, along with a few reasons why.

I’m not a huge body horror fan.  Therefore, my exposure to filmmaker David Cronenberg has been limited to The Fly and Videodrome.  I think both are very good, but neither leaves me feeling like I must go on a Cronenberg binge; the intensity of his work calls for long rest between viewings.  So, with it having been months since I saw Videodrome and this new Cosmopolis trailer hitting the internet, I guess now is as good a time as any to see another of his movies.

The first thing that stands out is Robert Pattinson.  For once, his lack of charisma seems to be the point, rather than a further demerit, to the film.  Maybe I’m being a little harsh on him, as I’ve only seen the first Twilight movie, but the impression he gave me in that was indifference and not much talent beyond looking moody.  In Cosmopolis, he appears to be much the same, but now he plays a business type, desensitized to the world around him.

I’m glad to see Cronenberg playing with that desensitization, as cinematically heightened versions of Occupy protesters pound on Pattinson’s limo’s windows while he sits there, insulated and unfeeling.  Associates of some sort suggest Pattinson needs to murder people, as that’s an extension of the business world.  The streets are burning, people are yelling and throwing dead rats while the upper crust like Pattinson and Sarah Gadon talk in detached, inhuman speech patterns to each other in posh restaurants.  Something tells me this will not be a very pro-business film.  Instead, I suspect it will act as an allegory — that’s not a surprise considering its source material, from author Don DeLillo’s novel — for modern indifference.  Our lack of interest in other people is of utmost interest to Cronenberg, and I’m excited to see what he can do with a story like this.