Cosmopolis is a 2012 drama film written, produced, and directed by David Cronenberg. It stars Robert Pattinson, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Juliette Binoche, Jay Baruchel and Kevin Durand. It is based on Don DeLillo's 2003 novel of the same name.
On 25 May 2012, the film premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The film was released in Canada on 8 June 2012, and began a limited release in the United States on 17 August 2012 by eOne Films. It is Cronenberg's first script since eXistenZ in 1999. It received polarizing reviews on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic and performed poorly at the box office.
Twenty-eight-year-old billionaire and currency speculator Eric Packer rides slowly across Manhattan amid traffic jams, in his state-of-the-art luxury stretch limousine office, to his preferred barber. Various visitors discuss the meaning of life and inconsequential trivia. The traffic jams are caused by a visit of the President of the United States and the funeral of Eric's favorite musician, a rap artist whose music he plays in one of his two private elevators. Despite devastating currency speculation losses over the course of the day, Packer fantasizes about buying the Rothko Chapel.
He meets his wife, Elise, in her taxi, for coffee, in a bookstore, as well as outside a theater. She declines sex with him. Packer has sex with two other women. When a day of poor trading destroys a large part of his wealth, his wife takes this as a reason to dissolve their union.
Anti-capitalist activists demonstrate on the street. They wave rats and declare, "A spectre is haunting the world: the spectre of capitalism". They spray-paint Packer's limo and later subject him to a pieing. Packer learns that an assassin has targeted him but seems uninterested in who the person might be.
In Eric's car, his doctor performs his daily medical checkup. Eric worries about the doctor's finding that he has an asymmetrical prostate. As the currency speculation wipes out most of his fortune, Eric's world begins to disintegrate. Eventually he kills his bodyguard. At the destination, the barber, who knew his father, cuts Eric's hair on one side. The barber and limo driver discuss their respective careers driving cabs. The barber gives Eric his gun because he threw away the bodyguard's.
Eric follows a path of further self-destruction, visiting his potential murderer, former employee Richard Sheets, a.k.a. Benno Levin. Eric seems ready to commit suicide, but instead deliberately shoots himself in the hand. Sheets, who feels adrift in the capitalist system, explains that Eric's mistake in speculating was looking for perfect symmetry and patterns in the currency market: he should have looked for the lopsidedâÂÂhis body with its asymmetrical prostate was telling him this. As Sheets points the gun to Eric's head, Eric seems to have overcome his fear of death as he waits for Sheets to pull the trigger. Eric's fate is left unknown.
News about a film adaptation of Cosmopolis first emerged on 10 February 2009. Screen Daily called it Paulo Branco's "most ambitious project to date" and estimated the budget at $10mâÂÂ12 million. On 26 July 2009, David Cronenberg was announced as the director. The film was scheduled to begin filming in 2010, produced by Branco's production house Alfama Films and Cronenberg's Toronto Antenna Ltd. Branco said Cronenberg had written the screenplay and had moved on to casting in September 2009. On 13 January 2010, Cronenberg said he was still committed to the film but had not started production. Principal photography took place in Toronto and was completed in July 2011. Colin Farrell was initially cast in the main role but left due to scheduling difficulties with Total Recall. He was later replaced by Pattinson. Marion Cotillard was involved in the project but also left because of scheduling conflicts.
The film's musical score is composed by Cronenberg's usual composer Howard Shore. He associated with the Canadian indie rock band Metric for the second time after their collaboration on a song for . Metric composed three songs for the film, along with Somali-Canadian rapper K'naan performing one song. The album was released on 4 June 2012.
Rotten Tomatoes reports that 67% of 189 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 6.10/10. The consensus says, "Though some may find it cold and didactic, Cosmopolis benefits from David Cronenberg's precise direction, resulting in a psychologically complex adaptation of Don DeLillo's novel." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Justin Chang of Variety wrote: "An eerily precise match of filmmaker and material, Cosmopolis probes the soullessness of the 1% with the cinematic equivalent of latex gloves. ... Pattinson's excellent performance reps an indispensable asset." Robbie Collin of The Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five, stating: Ross Miller of Thoughts On Film also gave the film four out of five stars stating that, "If, like me, you're in-tune with the tone, style and direction of the film then it provides for a fascinating and intellectually nourishing experience." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly stated, <blockquote> Cosmopolis includes its own version of the Occupy hordes: scruffy, vengeful protesters who run around the streets, and into restaurants, brandishing the bodies of dead rats. ... Pattinson, pale and predatory even without his pasty-white vampire makeup, delivers his frigid pensées with rhythmic confidence. </blockquote> A very positive review came from The London Film Review, which said "The fact is, Cronenberg made a movie for YOU. The 99%. A movie that reflects, comments on[,] satirizes and parodies our time."
However, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter criticized the film, writing:
Cahiers du Cinéma named it the year's second-best title, while Sight & Sound listed it as the eighth-best film of 2012. Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York named Cosmopolis the tenth-best film of 2012.
Film critic Amy Taubin named Cosmopolis one of her ten favorite films of all time when she participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll.