In David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel, Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) begins his day as a squillionaire, newlywed, wunderkind financier cruising in his Prousted limousine, dressed like the Men in Black. He ends it broke, alone, stinking, dishevelled, with a gun to his head and a haircut from Cool As Ice.
What’s intriguing about Eric’s dangerous, momentous day – which happens amid Occupy-style riots in New York streets – is that it feels so placid and inconsequential. Even its use of murder, sex and cultural connoisseurship as metaphors for capitalist alienation was handled with much more brio in Mary Harron’s American Psycho and its source novel by Bret Easton Ellis.
Some might find Cosmopolis pretentious and tedious. At first I loathed the mannered dialogue – the actors declaim rather than interact – but I enjoyed it more once I rolled with Cronenberg’s deadpan wit. Of the ensemble cast drifting in and out of Eric’s limo limbo, Kevin Durand (Eric’s security chief), Juliette Binoche (his art dealer) and Mathieu Amalric (a pie-throwing performance artist) best nail the arch tone. Pattinson convinces but never commands, though special praise must go to the exquisite faces he pulls during a prostate exam scene.
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