|
How entertaining? ★★★★★
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 13 October 2015
A movie review of DEMOLITION.Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015. (For more information, click here.)
|
“For some reason everything has become a metaphor,” Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal)
Did director Jean-Marc Vallée suddenly take a filmmaking pill? He has moved from overrated prestige pics (WILD, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, etc.) to deliver something compelling. A winning hotchpotch of tones – dread/pathos/humour – means second-guessing the movie is difficult. Respect. Of course Vallée has skilful allies in terms of Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts and Chris Cooper to channel a story of bereavement. The widower subgenre has the likes of GRACE IS GONE and LA NOSTRA VITA, and DEMOLITION is just as refreshingly different.
Did director Jean-Marc Vallée suddenly take a filmmaking pill? He has moved from overrated prestige pics (WILD, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, etc.) to deliver something compelling. A winning hotchpotch of tones – dread/pathos/humour – means second-guessing the movie is difficult. Respect. Of course Vallée has skilful allies in terms of Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts and Chris Cooper to channel a story of bereavement. The widower subgenre has the likes of GRACE IS GONE and LA NOSTRA VITA, and DEMOLITION is just as refreshingly different.
|
|
|
|
|
Julia (Heather Lind) and Davis chat in their car. Him uninterested. Marriage seemingly on a rote, downward slope for Davis, though his indifference borders sociopathic. When Davis talks about his morning regimen, there is an AMERICAN PSYCHO echo coming to mind (especially so after Gyllenhaal’s tour de force in 2014: NIGHTCRAWLER). Don’t worry, he is not repeating himself so quickly; there are several dextrous narrative bluffs. Back to that automobile one-way conversation - in the pit of your stomach doom is looming. And comes in the form of a car crash. Awaking in a hospital to father-in-law Phil Eastwood (Cooper) telling him Julia did not make it, reading Davis is not easy. We still don’t fathom his state of mind, not till the last few minutes in fact. Concluding this story satisfyingly/unexpectedly could not have been easy, and the feeling of nihilism is tempered (for better and worse).
|
|
At the hospital, and wanting a chocolate, the vending machine swallows Davis’ money sans delivering the expected snack. Frustrated, and streaming his conflated emotional state, he proceeds to write to the customer services department of the vending machine company. Instead of a brief statement of frustration the letters turn into epic autobiographical epistles (recounted as voice over), frankness brimming over. Such honesty is funnily socially awkward. Not many appreciate such candour, yet Karen Moreno (Watts), who is the entirety of the customer services team, is drawn to him and calls him out of the blue. A stoner, with a 15-year old son, Chris (Judah Lewis), and having an affair with her boss, Karen is not in a particularly good place either. Their glacial burgeoning friendship, devoid of physicality though not frisson, is another feather in the movie’s cap.
The title DEMOLITION comes from advice Phil offers Davis, in a restaurant housed in a former bank vault: If you want to fix something, you have to take it apart. Taking this literally and figuratively, Davis starts with a flickering light bulb (metaphorical epiphany akin to Robert De Niro’s, in HEAT, during his quandary over Waingro), then his office computer, onto his fridge, and… well… a bulldozer gets bought from eBay. Sundering of property and relationships has a voyeuristic and vicarious catharsis. Through the runtime one wonders: Is Davis going insane, or does he have the answers?
|
|
Using these Google Adsense links help us keep Filmaluation free for all film and arts lovers.
|
|
|