"Cosmopolis": What critics are saying
(CBS News) Robert Pattinson's new film "Cosmopolis" - the movie he's been trying to promote amid the media scrutiny on recent developments in his personal life - arrives in theaters Friday.
The David Cronenberg-directed film, based on Don DeLillo's novel of the same name, centers around a young billionaire (Pattinson) who travels around Manhattan in a limousine over the course of one long day, meeting with various associates as he goes to get a haircut.
Here's what some critics are saying about the film:
Robert Pattinson must be hellbent on escaping the world of sparkly-skinned undead to take on the starring role in the leaden, obtuse and ultra-pretentious 'Cosmopolis'...the film is willfully confounding, indulgent, claustrophobic and obfuscating, more concerned with attitude than clarity of focus. It's all vapid snark, didactic sermonizing and bewildering shock tactics." - Claudia Puig, USA Today.
"If you can get past the psychological density of the source material (Don DeLillo's 2003 novel) and the tabloid noise around the star (RPatz leaves KStew!), this mesmerizing mind-bender ought to prove two things: (1) Robert Pattinson really can act; (2) Director David Cronenberg never runs from a challenge." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.
"The film as a whole is a study in contrasts -- the beautiful versus the ugly; rich and poor; sane and deranged. But DeLillo's brilliant analysis of the destructive power of wealth that took such seductive hold on page has a tough time gaining traction on screen." - Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times.
"Mr. Cronenberg keeps you rapt, even when the story and actors don't." - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.
"Lifeless, stagey and lacking a palpable subversive pulse despite the ready opportunities offered by the material, this stillborn adaptation of Don DeLillo's novel initially will attract some Robert Pattinson fans but will be widely met with audience indifference." - Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter.
"Cronenberg seems to be trying for a sci-fi poetic vision of the new financial power brokers and the slow-motion monetary nervous breakdown that they helped to create and are still feeding off of. Yet he's so possessed by the stark significance of these themes that he hasn't made 'Cosmopolis' into a movie. It is, rather, a parade of hollow didactic encounters." - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly.
Eric's plotless encounters are compelling scene by scene, but they can feel a bit enervating over the long haul, because there's nothing driving the film forward - certainly not the limo. It's like a dream that engages and drifts, until waking with a start in a finale that's as bracing and raw as the rest of the film is coolly distant. - Scott Tobias, NPR.
Tell us: Do you plan to see "Cosmopolis"?
