Cosmopolis

Cosmopolis is strange and fantastic.

It takes place in the world of the super-rich, in particular, Robert Pattinson's character Eric Packer and his stretch limo, the main setpiece of the film. His actual job is unclear, but it's a futuristic take on a major stockbroker. Packer is mostly concerned with two things: his own demise, both medically and financially, and getting a haircut. He is driven through the city in his high-tech stretch limo as associates, employees, and lovers stop by and his chief of security, Torval flutters over him. Torval has reasons to be worried; the president is in town, clogging the streets, there is a fledgling anarchist movement using the rat as its symbol, and someone is plotting to kill Eric. Eric, however, remains detached about everything but the unpredictability of the yuan, and his haircut.

The entire film is detached in general; the dialogue, lifted straight from the book, is clinical and dense with philosophy. Most conversations seem like monologues, a chance for the character to spout their worldview, and in some ways it's almost lyrical. The film is also divided into two distinct worlds: the car, where the vast majority of the action takes place, and the outside world, which is showing signs of civil unrest, and is where Eric's assassinator lies. Eric's world is in his car, where he has everything at his fingertips and can keep track of his quickly diminishing assets;  the outside world doesn't really matter to him. This sounds like it would make for a completely cold and flat film, especially with the equally clinical cinematography, but the flatness creates an unreal atmosphere that is truly what the film is about. The dialogue, setting, and characters are all in a world based on theory, and Eric and his colleagues are completely wrapped up in it.

Eric's car is the real barrier between the concrete and the theoretical; the best scene that describes this is when Eric meets with his financial theory adviser. She has a monologue about the nature of society and economics while a riot is going on around them; the protesters swarm the car, carrying a giant rat effigy and vandalizing the limo, and neither her or Eric responds in the slightest. As they pass through, Eric sees a person immolate himself, and her only comment is that the idea is completely unoriginal. This is a person killing himself in the most painful way possible, and her only concern is that it's been done before. In her world, all that matters is the big picture of how social unrest works; the actual people involved don't concern her.

It's easy to interpret this scene, and the film as a whole, as taking a stand against the "1%"; all of the money involved is in stocks, which fluctuate in ways that can seem like magic. Eric doesn't seem to have a concrete concept of money at all, best shown in a scene where he convinces one of his lovers to make an offer on an art gallery that she repeatedly insists is not for sale. But the economics are only a backdrop on a character study about someone who is intensely detached from the outside world. What he does and says and what he thinks is okay lead to some truly great moments (the prostate exam scene is particularly funny), and the stakes get higher as he begins to push his boundaries in a world that is actually against him. Cosmopolis isn't trying to make a statement about money, but instead exploring how a closed environment can warp a person's view of reality, and how they try to reconnect with the world outside.