Movie Review : Cosmopolis (2012)
Adapting Don DeLillo novels for cinema is somewhat of an extreme sport. Lars Von Trier would do it Dogville-style and have two people sitting on chairs and talking to one another for two hours, because Lars Von Trier doesn’t give a fuck about entertaining you. But you know who does? David Cronenberg. The Canadian director tried his hand a Cosmopolis in 2012, DeLillo’s most uncomfortable and prescient novel of the twenty-first century, which started Robert Pattinson’s artistic renaissance.
And it kind of works!
The main protagonist in Eric Packer (Pattinson), a twenty-eight years old hedge fund dudebro taking his goddamn limousine to his barber because he can. It would be a crazy idea on a normal day, but a presidential visit, an anti-capitalist protest and the funeral of his favourite rapper Brutha Fez are severely constipating the traffic and if Eric’s day wasn’t complicated enough, he’s getting death threats on top of it. But it doesn’t keep Eric form working all day because this is what he does. Being a dudebro and all.
Fragmented reality for dummies
As I said in my review of the novel (written exactly three years ago. Freaky), Cosmopolis is a story that aged remarkably well. It makes more sense now than it did when it originally came out. What makes David Cronenberg’s adaptation worthwhile is how he uses the protagonist’s limousine as a filtering hub for reality, kind of a like an iPhone today. It’s where he’s in control. He invites people in and out. Everybody behaves the way he wants. He gets anything he wants: sex, services, information, etc.
Outside, it’s utter chaos. The limousine getting wrecked by paint and projectiles, but the inside always remains unscathed, like it is located in a different reality. Cosmopolis is a very cerebral story, filled with dread and characters discussing a series of unrelated intellectual topics, but it’s built to be this way. What David Cronenberg illustrates so well is that such a cold, cerebral outlook on life is the luxury of of those who can afford to separate themselves from the primordial chaos of existence.
If this privilege was truly a luxury in 2003 (and, to a certain extent, 2012), it isn’t so much today. You might feel connected to the world through the technological limousine in your pocket, you’re in control of what to see, what to care about, what to act upon. The reality you’re experiencing is extremely fragmented and it fragments itself more every day. This is why despite the arid nature of Cosmopolis, it’s difficult not to keep watching it. It feels inexplicably real despite not making any effort to be.
Unsatisfied expectations and the cycle of life
Another aspect of Cosmopolis I thought was quite successful is its avoidance of any form of moral storytelling. A lot of people are going to complain that Cosmopolis doesn’t have a story to tell because it doesn’t have clear heroes and villains and that their fate is not decisive, but it would be a classic idiot trap for Western viewership to fall in. Packer is pursued by a man named Benno Levin (the great Paul Giamatti), who wants to kill him for what he represents (a hegemonic system), but Benno is no hero.
Benno and Eric are simply two opposing forces in contemporary society and, to a certain extent, two opposing forces that you can find anywhere in nature: power and change. By dominating the economy (and doing a rather poor job at it) Eric shapes the world around him, which again is illustrated through his limousine. That is how he once fired the inadequate Benno, who is very much portrayed as inadequate in this movie: lonely, confused, disheveled. Eric has power.
In order to rival with financial and political power, Benno turns to firearms and physical power in order to reestablish the balance, hence the cat and mouse game they play in Cosmopolis. I love how Cronenberg nailed the portrait of a phenomenon we’re so used to understand as good and evil. This battle between the powerful and the oppressed is kind of natural. It’s a byproduct of how the world works. How it deals with its own imperfections. That point was made brilliantly by Cronenberg.
*
Cosmopolis is a very odd and uncomfortable movie (and story), but it is for the right reasons. By forsaking moral storytelling and a building an architecture of contemporary emotional disconnection, it addresses issues that are pertinent without an agenda and therefore exposing them for what they really are. It’s somewhat of a trip for film eggheads like me, but it has that otherworldly Cronenbergian charm that anyone might swept up by. For completists and anarchists.
