Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart.
On the spur of the moment, twenty-eight year old Manhattan self-made multi-billionaire Eric Packer decides he wants to get a haircut from his regular and longtime barber across town, a difficult journey today if only because of the traffic gridlock from three high profile but vastly different events taking place in the borough, including a wandering anarchist protest, they who largely use dead rats as their symbol of protest. Through his trek, Eric, most taking place in his stretch limousine, meets with several business associates - some with as esoteric job titles as Head of Theory - and personal acquaintances, including his several week bride, Elise, a wealthy woman in her own right with who he still has a somewhat distant relationship if only because they don't really know each other. The start of Eric's day ends much differently than the end as his personal fortune largely hinges on external forces in relation to a speculative currency transaction, and as he learns that someone is...Written by
Huggo
[first lines]
Torval:
Where?
Eric Packer:
I wanna a haircut.
Torval:
The president's in town.
Eric Packer:
We don't care. We need a haircut. We need to go crosstown.
Torval:
You will hit traffic that speaks in quarter inches.
Eric Packer:
Just so I know. Which president are we talking about?
Torval:
United States. Barriers will be set up. Entire streets deleted from the map.
Eric Packer:
Show me my car.
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Crazy Credits
Pre-credits title card: a rat became the unit of currency ZBIGNIEW HERBERT See more »
This is a very profound and insightful film. It focuses on dialogues more than action, not a lot of things happen. It is demanding for the audience, yes, but every line of dialogue suggests, every line holds a meaning.
Cosmopolis is like an essay about our times and the times to come. What is derivative in our system and how the human mind and the human condition is dangerously shifting. This is pure Cronenberg, very mental, talking about the society through the portrayal of individual psychology.
This is for me the most accurate yet quite pessimistic depiction I've seen of what the society of money and information means for human beings. And it digs quite far, thus can become hard to understand. Our relationship to Time has changed, you focus on minutes and seconds. It used to be manageable, but now it goes out of control. Chaotic profusion of information, self-contradiction, being an enigma for ourselves, blurry perception, blurry identity, and do we even have one ? We as a spectator can feel on the edge, as ambivalent as Eric Packer, both reflective and impulsive. Anyway, I think the viewer will throw his own inner themes in the profusion of concepts that rise from the film. Cronenberg is still the master of suggestion, window big open for interpretation.
Maybe it won't touch those who feel they perfectly fit in their times. Facebook users, people talking about money, people caring for what they've been told to care. Maybe you have to feel a bit out of phase, out of place at least sometimes to get engaged in the film.
It is brilliant in connecting the concepts together in some momentum. There is terrific cinematography by Cronenberg on depth of field and what happens inside/outside the limo -Eric Packer's inner sanctum-. Very great acting by Pattinson, Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Durand.
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This is a very profound and insightful film. It focuses on dialogues more than action, not a lot of things happen. It is demanding for the audience, yes, but every line of dialogue suggests, every line holds a meaning.
Cosmopolis is like an essay about our times and the times to come. What is derivative in our system and how the human mind and the human condition is dangerously shifting. This is pure Cronenberg, very mental, talking about the society through the portrayal of individual psychology.
This is for me the most accurate yet quite pessimistic depiction I've seen of what the society of money and information means for human beings. And it digs quite far, thus can become hard to understand. Our relationship to Time has changed, you focus on minutes and seconds. It used to be manageable, but now it goes out of control. Chaotic profusion of information, self-contradiction, being an enigma for ourselves, blurry perception, blurry identity, and do we even have one ? We as a spectator can feel on the edge, as ambivalent as Eric Packer, both reflective and impulsive. Anyway, I think the viewer will throw his own inner themes in the profusion of concepts that rise from the film. Cronenberg is still the master of suggestion, window big open for interpretation.
Maybe it won't touch those who feel they perfectly fit in their times. Facebook users, people talking about money, people caring for what they've been told to care. Maybe you have to feel a bit out of phase, out of place at least sometimes to get engaged in the film.
It is brilliant in connecting the concepts together in some momentum. There is terrific cinematography by Cronenberg on depth of field and what happens inside/outside the limo -Eric Packer's inner sanctum-. Very great acting by Pattinson, Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Durand.