It's Cosmopolis Day in Canada! This is your spoiler thread so we invite you to share your uncensored thoughts all weekend in here. Below are links to our previous review/spoiler threads and my review of Cosmopolis. I kept the more spoiler-y bits under the cut for those avoiding.
- Part 1 - "Robert Pattinson giving a commanding, sympathetic portrait!"
- Part 2 - "Sensational central performance from Robert Pattinson"
- Part 3 - Robert Pattinson is "excellent in a difficult role"
- Spoiler Post #1
I was not ready for the visual and auditory experience of Cosmopolis. It was exactly what David Cronenberg said: "fantastic faces saying fantastic words". My initial reaction to the film was I felt like my brain just had sex. The words kept running through my mind post-viewing and the interactions Rob's Eric Packer had with each character was impossible to forget.
Rob's performance was brilliant. It truly was. I only saw Eric Packer on the screen and I was mesmerized by his words, mind and actions. Rob shined in this role. It was "thick and chewy" and he owned it. I liken his performance to running a 4x4 race. Starting with a steady pace but half way through, letting your skill expand and in the last leg, letting it explode. The effect leaving you breathless. I felt breathless when the credits started to roll. This approach felt right for Eric too. His day, starting with a simple request/demand - a haircut - but then escalating into unfathomable complexities. Climaxing into an unknown but hopeful future.
More review after the cut w/semi-spoilers
Yes the hope. I saw what Rob meant. Two different things that were talked about during promo were evident to me. The hope and the humor. I loved loved loved the humor. The humor was there in the text but it was delightful on the screen. The film is so absurd! The reality of this day is beyond something I can relate to but I like that. I was riveted scene after scene. In and out of the limo they go, what will they say to this man on his throne? I like the modern take on a type of Shakespearean style, the style of a playwright - words loaded with meaning and filling every scene. It's unique and I welcome this entry into the industry full of "standard models".The other thing I liked was not feeling as if I needed to understand each "speech" to enjoy the scene. Vija (Samantha Morton) and Benno (Paul Giamatti) have some long monologues that you can get lost in but the cadence of the words and the expressions of their faces held me captive, just like Rob did with Eric the entire movie. My eyes and ears felt captive. I couldn't look away or go to the rest room. I had to watch and listen.
On a sexual side, because come on, I come from the DR, these were the most explicit sex scenes from Rob even in the wake of Bel Ami with it's nudity. What made me feel that way was the lack of filler sound and music in the film. It was real. We don't walk through life with a score playing from the sky. We're breathing and panting and smacking. And so was Eric. Rob's scene with Juliette was fully clothed but was still incredibly sexy. The movement of his hands and expression on his sweaty face - oh lord. And Rob's scene with Patricia? The bodyguard? Um. Let's see. It felt scandalously voyeuristic. Real and raw. There's a line Eric says after the climax that is perfection and a crack up. The prostate scene wasn't exactly sex but it was sexual. Rob and Emily's characters are talking business but you feel that sexual tension rising. You want your own water bottle to grip. And again, Eric erupts with these words at the end of the scene that you feel from head to toe and Jane's next line is perfectly timed.
The film is very quotable and I found myself reciting lines all week. They're fun to apply to your life. I was doing that before with the novel. I was at my mother's working out sometime last year and the stove buzzer went off. I keep running on the treadmill and my mother came into the room and asked why I didn't shut off the buzzer. I told her I was letting it express itself. I'm lucky she didn't haul off and smack me off the treadmill. We're not all brilliant millionaires ruling our world from a prousted limo. We can't speak that way to people without getting some major side-eye. It's still a deliciously, meaty language and I bet you can't resist speaking like these people just a little after you see the film. Rob also said he's attracted to the language and will speak the lines when he hears them again.
There were choices as a director that really struck me on my first viewing as well. The pap scene, David had the cameras flash in a way that it blinded you and made you uncomfortable. You felt the invasion of the cameras and you can imagine who I thought of. I liked seeing Eric unravel too. His clothes and his face seemed to shed the strength and power he had in the beginning. Each unique interaction with the characters. The swagger, which was longer (and hotter) than the trailer, and the start of that climax with Rob and Paul. Oh and that final scene? My goodness. Everything about it was excellent. The movement of their bodies. How they looked at each other. The confessional aspects of their positions. How Eric spoke to Benno. Eric's expression from shooting his hand and all the way to the end. The emotion in his eyes. Wow. For a film having little action, it was....inflamed. ;)
I've gone on way to much with this review and I swear it's only a quarter of what's in my head about the film. That's actually appropriate to be so wordy about a talky film.
If you enjoy films outside of the norm, like your mind stretched, laugh at absurdity and love Robert Pattinson, you will love Cosmopolis. It's going to show you something you don't know.
If you can, go see Cosmopolis this weekend and share your own reactions in this thread. I can't wait to read more of your thoughts.
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