Well, until now not one work of the well known DeLillo is been adapted into a movie, his books are considered to be unadaptable because of his particular writing style and his specific views on our daily society.
So it was very daring of Cronenberg to take the risk and made a movie with dialogues intact. It will probably not turn well on the BO and general reception, maybe Cronenberg has put the bar too high this time, but the fact that he was willing to try, made me a fan of him.
And, IMHO, he made it work. Only a genius like Cronenberg could recreate Eric Packers mind on screen. Only a self confident director like Cronenberg saw the talent in Robert Pattinson to bring insane, psychotic elements in such a natural way to life (I'm working in the psychological department, I see when an actor 'acts' psychotic and when he 'is' psychotic).
I think the big problem of Cosmopolis is not the movie itself. The adaptation is more than good, though I regret some parts not being there. The problem is that, in theatre, you can't pause, rewind and hear the text again. The quotes, the oneliners, so meaningful and visionary, don't have enough time to get into the viewer's mind.
You can't blame the audience, you can only advise the audience to not throw this movie away, to try again with an open mind, maybe after having given the book a try.
It's not because the viewers don't get the movie after a first watch, that the viewer is dumb or the movie is bad. Even Pattinson and Cronenberg didn't really get the plot when they started shooting. It was an odyssey for them too, but what a nice journey they made of it, in my idea.
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