Taken most literally, Cosmopolis is about a rich guy going to get a haircut. That’s the story. But you can’t take this anti-capitalist, Kafkaesque satire literally … can you?
The narrative consists of an asset manager, Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), driving around Manhattan in a stretch limousine shielded from the sounds of the unwashed masses rioting outside. He sees his wife a couple of times and has sex inside and outside the car (neither time with his wife) in between dense conversations with mysterious people providing news, assurances, questions and economic theory. The president of the United States is in town, apparently, and there’s also a credible threat on Eric’s life.
Watching Cosmopolis feels like starting a television series in the middle of its run, when we’re expected to know who everyone is and what they’re doing; or better yet, like crashing a party you’re not invited to, surrounded by strangers who come and go like ghosts, never sticking around long enough to introduce themselves. Spectator orientation is your job, not the movie’s. Get with the program quickly or get out.
Several moviegoers did get out at the sparse screening I attended Friday night at the Gateway. I noticed at least three walkouts, and it’s easy to see why. Some people surely expected this to be a Robert Pattinson movie and instead were treated to a pedantic brain fart on the state of capitalism and income inequality in a globalized market.
But even if you expected an art-house film, as you should have, Cosmopolis is a tough dose of medicine to swallow — an episodic series of conversations punctuated by non-sequiturs and laden with difficult diction.
But can director David Cronenberg be blamed for simply following his source material – Don DeLillo’s book of the same name – to a T? Most of Cronenberg’s adaptations rise from complex books, graphic novels and plays, and he is regarded as a faithful, astute translator, bringing his own pessimistic world view to the plot machinations of others. In the case of Cosmopolis, the translation from page to screen is so loyal it’s practically redundant.
Cronenberg gave himself a screenplay credit for what is practically a copy-and-paste job from DeLillo’s book. Reading it beforehand is not necessary, because you’re pretty much reading it at the movie, only without the ability to pace yourself and absorb these thickets of information gradually (I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to pause and rewind the film print).
A better introduction might be to look at the film’s recent cinematic forbears: American Psycho, with its indictment of a sociopathic class of Wall Street vermin; The Limits of Control, with its quizzical series of obtuse conversations progressing toward a grand confrontation; and Waking Life, with its creative crash course in philosophy, sociology, biology and politics delivered by fleeting experts. If you enjoyed these films, you’ll probably like Cosmopolis, too.
I found it pretentious but thrilling, and even surprisingly comic: “I want to go home and tongue-kiss my Maxima,” blurts a character played by Emily Hampshire, one of Eric’s many visiting “chiefs.” The film’s linguistic cul-de-sacs feature U-turns in unexpected places, constantly keeping viewers sharp and on their toes, never pandering to them. Thinking critically is not only permitted; it’s required.
And when you do start to think about the gruesome spectacle that Cosmopolis becomes, it begins to feel like a revelatory polemic perfectly suited to a post-Occupy Wall Street environment. If the political ideology of The Dark Knight Rises came off as muddled and inconsistent, there’s no confusion about where Cronenberg and DeLillo stand, skewering Eric Packer as a vulgar emblem of excess – an oversized rat in his oppressive, soundproof enclave of a limousine.
Given that the book was written in 2003, DeLillo comes off looking like an oracle of the banking crisis and Cronenberg a documentarian of its aftermath. What starts off like Kafka ends up looking more like the New York Times.
COSMOPOLIS. Director: David Cronenberg; Cast: Robert Pattinson, Sarah Gadon, Samantha Morton, Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche, Jay Baruchel, Kevin Durand, K’Naan; Distributor: Entertainment One; Rating: R; Now playing at Cinemark Palace 20 and Regal Shadowood 16 in Boca Raton, Regal Delray Beach 18 and the Classic Gateway Theatre in Fort Lauderdale.