ROBERT PATTINSON – COSMOPOLIS
28 year-old finance golden boy Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson) appears to have it all, yet nothing is what it seems. Chauffeured across Manhattan for a haircut, the young Wall Street titan finds his world beginning to unravel: a sham marriage, sex addiction, phobias and paranoia, all amidst the crumbling of his empire. As the day devolves into an odyssey that tears his world apart, Eric starts to piece together clues that lead him to a terrifying secret: his imminent assassination.
Meanwhile Cronenberg Sr showed he has lost none of his touch with Cosmopolis, starring vampire of sorts Robert Pattinson, whose career is now officially disinterred. Adapted and updated from Don De Lillo’s 2003 novel, the film follows a New York plutocrat’s ride across town for a (literal and symbolic) haircut, as in the space of one day – and mostly within the confines of his customised limousine - he loses everything. It is also an elegiac odyssey through the kind of self-destructive hubris that led to the Credit Crunch and the economic mess that we are still in today. Indeed, it has been a good year for films set in limousines, as Leos Carax’s uncategorisable Holy Motors (recently placed first in Cahiers du Cinema’s Top Ten films of 2012) also took viewers on a chauffeur-driven trip, through a Paris mapped out in cinematic references where individual identity is constructed from a series of absurdly pre-scribed parts and actor’s postures. Denis Lavant is astonishingly versatile in the lead rôle(s), even if the film at times risks running itself off the road with its episodic meanderings.
13. Cosmopolis. In the end, it's mere gravy that David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis unfolds in a world that eerily, and almost blatantly, reflects our modern headlines, its Occupy themes and global-capital woes perpetually looming. What's truly depicted in this gorgeous adaptation of Don DeLillo's prescient 2003 novel is the whittling down of the poster boy of individual, millennial anxieties, sparked by the deadly, rampant elixir of privilege, apathy, and telecommuting. From his rolling command center of a white limousine, the WiFi hot spot of the obscenely rich, billionaire Eric Packer (a revelatory Robert Pattinson) is at once linked up to the world and maddeningly removed from it, his personal, untried revolving door granting equal access to wisdom and delusion, personified by the limo's parade of guests. Evoking its director's past aesthetics and bodily interests with cool restraint, Cosmopolis is a wry, stylish nightmare of contemporary disconnect, and an audacious charting of all that crumbles when reality seeps in. With much dialogue lifted verbatim from DeLillo's text, the film's dizzying verbosity may be challenging to swallow, but in a cinematic year teeming with lone protagonists clawing for ways to survive, it has more to say—and to mull over—than maybe 100 movies. R. Kurt Osenlund
15. Cosmopolis
David Cronenberg, Canada/France
37. Cosmopolis
The Movie: The second of two David Cronenberg films released in the UK this year was a return to his weird roots, as Robert Pattinson is driven across riot-stricken Manhattan so he can have a haircut.
The sex, death and horrendous hand injuries were classic Cronenberg, but most people noticed only the endless talk, talk, talk...
Impact: Mass walkouts from disgruntled R-Pattz fans who didn't want to see their hero having his prostrate examined.
And, alongside Holy Motors, a sudden surge in 'guy in a limousine' movies.
Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg; $763,556)
This one’s been stewing in my brain for months, and none of the reflection has tainted this film one bit; if anything, it’s only grown more valuable over time. David Cronenberg’s limousine trip into the damaged perspective of a young, emotionally hollow fat cat — played to perfection by a not-as-advertised Robert Pattinson — can’t really be considered the most accessible work of 2012, but those willing to go with its strange rhythms and mysterious internal logic are bound to get… something. While I think it’s best people make the thing out for themselves by just letting it all sit, those simply hoping for a left-of-center cinematic experience ought to find themselves more than pleased. And that’s without even considering the incredible music of Howard Shore & Metric. – Nick N.
Moviefone - 'Cosmopolis' (David Cronenberg)
There seemed to be a little juice behind Canadian director David Cronenberg's latest effort, a wonderfully meandering adaptation of Dom DeLillo's novel of the same name that charts a single, seemingly endless limousine ride. For one, the film premiered at Cannes, to mostly ecstatic audiences (full disclosure: I was in one of them), and for another, Cronenberg loaded his bizarre contraption with a secret weapon: Robert Pattinson. As a disaffected billionaire, Pattinson showed unheard of gravitas and wit, both of which were sorely missing during his five-movie tenure as sparkly vampire Edward in the "Twilight" movies. But not even his handsome or borderline hieroglyphic face, could get people to come out to "Cosmopolis." Granted, the movie is pretty weird. But it's also tremendously rewarding -- it works its hooks into you and, months after seeing it, I still can't stop thinking about it. It's also part of 2012's great limousine ride double feature, along with Leos Carax's equally strange "Holy Motors." The mini-bar optional.
David Cronenberg's chilling adaptation of Don DeLillo's apocalyptic satire about a billionaire financier is extraordinarily timely in the wake of the recent financial crisis brought on by the wild speculation and unrestrained greed. Robert Pattinson plays Robert Packer, the young tycoon whom the film follows as he creeps in his limousine across an imploding New York City, his life of absurd luxury set to come crashing down around him.
It's a scenario that seems geared expressly toward Cronenberg's sensibilities. The film plays like Videodrome — or, as the New Yorker argued, Crash — transplanted to the increasingly endangered world of the one per cent, and rolling out like a seamless fusion of La Ronde, pornographic movies and Celine's Journey to the End of the Night. As Packer frets about a market gamble he's made, he fails to notice the world around him sliding into anarchy as he foolishly insists on being driven across town to get a haircut (despite the traffic and an impending visit by the President, which has the city in lockdown).
Boasting the hippest casts of any Canadian film this year, Cosmopolis also stars Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method; Anti-Viral) as Packer's new bride; Jay Baurchel (Goon; Tropic Thunder); Emily Hampshire (The Trotsky; My Awkward Sexual Adventure); and imports Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche and Samantha Morton.
1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)
2. Tabu (Miguel Gomes, Portugal/Germany/France)
3. Amour (Michael Haneke, France/Germany/Austria)
4. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, France/Germany)
5. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, USA)
= Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, UK/Germany)
7. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, USA)
8. Beyond the Hills (Christian Mungiu, Romania/France/Belgium)
= Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, Canada/France/Portugal/Italy)
= Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/Bosnia & Herzegovina)
= This is Not A Film (Jafar Pahani & Mojtaba Mirtahmaseb, Iran)
1. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
2. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
3. Twixt (Francis Ford Coppola)
4. 4:44 Last Day On Earth (Abel Ferrara)
4. In Another Country (Hong Sang-Soo)
4. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
7. Go Go Tales (Abel Ferrara)
8. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
8. Faust (Alexadre Sokourov)
10. Keep The Lights On (Ira Sachs)
And who would've thought, four years ago when the first Twilight movie launched him into the teen idol stratosphere, that Robert Pattinson would not only make the Cahiers du Cinema Top 10 but come in with a film in the #2 slot? Looks like teaming up with Cronenberg was RPattz's best career move, after all.
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