The Bloodsucker in the Chair

Cosmopolis

** out of ****

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche and Mathieu Amalric

Running time: 108 minutes

David Cronenberg shot his new film Cosmopolis last summer, before “occupy” became a buzzword synonymous with revolution against corporate greed.

An adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel, Cosmopolis examines the thrust of the tension between the “99 per cent” and the heads of financial power. However, despite its placement within a world filled with tension due to economic disparity, it is the dullest feature the Canadian writer/director has ever made.

It is impervious as to why Cronenberg cast Robert Pattinson in the lead role. Full of ego and little else, Pattinson’s performance cannot carry a picture already marred in complex prose that is often recited but rarely spoken with conviction.

Cronenberg explained that he adapted DeLillo’s novel in a mere six days, although the film seems less a coherent merge of ideas and scenes than scripted strands of an academic essay that have been copied and pasted intermittently.

Pattinson is Eric Packer, an aimless multi-billionaire. Even though he is rich, young and recently married, Packer feels empty. He yearns to be stunned with some sort of feeling – violent or sexual – yet despite being the protagonist in a Cronenberg picture, this arousal comes harder than it should.

The first two thirds of Cosmopolis take place, primarily, in Packer’s limo as it slowly weaves through a New York traffic standstill. (Although Cosmopolis is set in New York, Toronto landmarks and attractions keep popping out from the screen.) He is off to get a haircut on the other side of the city, although he doesn’t need one.

The scenes turn into episodes without a goal, as friends (Jay Baruchel and company), prostitutes (including Juliette Binoche) and miscellaneous characters drop into the limo to suit Packer’s needs. He has lunch with his wife, a wistful blonde named Elise (Sarah Gadon). A doctor even stops by to examine Packer's prostate.

During the ride, Packer finds out that the managing director of the IMF was assassinated, an action of revolution that has spurred chaos around the world. The limo is soundproof and Packer cannot hear the anti-capitalist riots outside. The car is a lair of plush black leather, hardwood panels and shiny electronic screens, a monsterly extension of the protagonist.

Drained of eroticism, both the film and the protagonist are too vapid to relate to. Cosmopolis moves as slowly as the traffic jam that paralyzes Packer in his limousine.

Some of the supporting cast fares better, and unsurprisingly, these turns come from the heated acts of desperation from characters that are also victims of economic turmoil.

Paul Giamatti plays Benno Levin, an aimless, angry man who confronts Packer at the end of the film and gives him a piece of his mind. Cosmopolis’s final scene, a 20-minute confrontation of Packer’s ego and Levin’s misery, works toward a cathartic (although somewhat ambiguous) resolution. It’s a major change from the dreary, monochromatic pessimism that permeates through much of the film.

Meanwhile, Mathieu Amalric (of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) enlivens his lone moments as a protestor who stages a small pie-in-the-face coup toward the protagonist, hoping to sabotage Packer’s power in front of TV cameras.

Packer keeps pining on about how the specter of capitalism haunts the world, yet despite its relevant themes and intriguing ideas within the realm of dire financial times – the standard of currency in the film’s world is the rat – Cosmopolis doesn’t explore these elements with much depth.