A fascinating movie, so structurally impenetrable and confusing yet so refreshingly uncompromising in its examination of behaviors, personalities, and financial toxicity; plays like a cautionary tale for the wealthy.
Full review by Chris Pandolfi.
ShockYa: Eric Packer is a billionaire asset manager waiting out the result of a bet against the Chinese Yuan in his stretch limo as he drives around the city, interacting with his wife, coworkers, doctor and a parade of rat wielding protesters.
The only way I can describe this film is by using a popular internet meme: Daf**? (I actually said this out loud after the film ended)
Jeremy of The Daily Rotation wrote, "David Cronenberg has been very hit-or-miss lately. His most recent films haven’t impressed nearly as much as some of his older work, but he still gets points for continuing to try and push experimental cinema, even if the outcome is mostly a bust. Cosmopolis is his latest creation and in it he gets a serviceable, but not career-altering performance out of Robert Pattinson and a few scattered, but memorable performances out of Paul Giamatti and Sarah Gadon. Cosmopolis isn’t a completely unwatchable disaster like most claim it to be, but it is a difficult film to digest and something that might require another viewing or two to really grasp it, but only because of the ineffective way Cronenberg presents the story."
Collider:
A frequent them in the oeuvre of writer-director David Cronenberg is how we become alienated through the ubiquitous. We fail to notice how everyday facets of our lives are changing us on a fundamental level, and causing us to be alienated from ourselves and each other physically, mentally, and emotionally. In Videodrome, Crash, and eXistenZ, Cronenberg explored how technology warped our relationship to the world to the point where technology became organic and the organic became mechanical. In his last movie, A Dangerous Method, Cronenberg explored how psychotherapy causes people to become distanced from their emotions and psyches. In his latest film, Cosmopolis, Cronenberg turns his eye to capitalism, and has created a darkly comic, coldly calculating look at a world where everything is for sale and nothing has value. Like A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis suffers from the lack of an emotional impact, which is the inevitable result of a story where characters have become disconnected from emotion, but the story will still leave your head spinning.
