Lou Bloom is not your usual movie sociopath. With his mane
of slightly too-long hair, wiry frame and large eyes, he lacks the subtle
menace of Hannibal Lecter and the slick, shallow charisma of Patrick Bateman.
If anything, his tendency to aggressively spout self-help aphorisms and hackneyed
corporate jargon at a mile a minute makes him seem rather dense at first, almost
childlike. He starts the film as an aimless petty thief, selling wire, watches
and whatever random paraphernalia he can find for a meager income, and claims
to have only a high school education. For all his go-getter gusto, he doesn’t
come across as particularly magnetic, competent or intimidating – he’s more
Pete Campbell than Don Draper.
And
yet, it’s impossible to take your eyes off him. Naturally, a large portion of
the credit must go to star Jake Gyllenhaal, who has quietly spent the past
couple years undergoing one of the weirdest, most unexpected career revivals
this side of Matthew McConaughey, with turns in gritty, off-kilter indies like End of Watch and Prisoners. Here, the
transformation is complete: nearly 30 pounds lighter and affecting a deadpan,
higher-pitched voice, he’s virtually unrecognizable as the fresh-faced kid of October Sky, Donnie Darko and Brokeback
Mountain. Such dramatic changes in appearance tend to invite hyperbole from
the media, words like “fearless” and “astonishing” tossed around with the nonchalance
of a baseball between innings (or, on the flip side, they’re scorned as
self-serving stunts that merit neither admiration nor awards). In this case,
however, any and all praise is entirely deserved. The weight loss isn’t what
makes Gyllenhaal’s performance a remarkable feat of physical acting; it’s the
nuances, the way he can apparently go endless amounts of time without blinking,
the smile so unnervingly wide it verges on cartoonish, the minute gestures and
shifts in expression that seem simultaneously meaningful and utterly. It’s electrifying
in its contradictions, by turns ostentatious and controlled, raw and aloof, and
as hard to pin down as the film’s protagonist.
With
the spotlight monopolized, the rest of the cast is inevitably relegated to the
sidelines, left to make the best of what they have. As Rick, Lou’s
cash-strapped assistant/driver, Riz Ahmed provides a welcome sense of sanity
and humanity to soften the movie’s relentless misanthropy, his down-to-earth sincerity
a perfect foil to Gyllenhaal’s eerie coldness. Although we learn little about
him, Rick’s mounting desperation feels painfully real. Similarly, Rene Russo, appearing
in a non-Thor-related movie for the
first time since 2005, takes full advantage of her limited screen time as a
callous, sharp-tongued morning news director. She navigates the plot’s more
problematic twists and turns with ostensible ease, taking what could easily
have been a one-dimensional “tamed shrew” character and imbuing her with
dignity and verve.
Nightcrawler starts with a series of
still shots of Los Angeles – a building here, a traffic light there – set to a cheesy
‘80s-style electronic soundscape. In other words, nothing out of the ordinary.
But as the movie progresses, the city takes on a gradually more unsettling
vibe, traces of sleaze creeping into its sleek façade, mirrored by James Newton
Howard’s increasingly discordant score. This is, after all, a satire, alternately
tearing its claws into the sensationalist media, capitalism and, in a pleasant
surprise, American race relations. First-time director
Dan Gilroy exhibits a deft feel for tone with a darkly funny script pitched
just right between acerbic and absurd,
driving its point home without resorting to pompous moralizing. It’s the rare
satire that manages to sustain its edge, its unapologetic, madcap cynicism,
from beginning to end.
Again, it all comes down to Lou
Bloom. Even as it appears to unravel him, as we learn the full extent of his
depravity, the film refrains from really letting us inside his head. Unlike American Psycho and even Gone Girl earlier this year, Nightcrawler does not encourage us to
identify with its protagonist. Lou may be in nearly every scene, but he always
seems to be at an arm’s distance away – sometimes literally. The camera’s
position and angle changes constantly, going from close-ups to abrupt wide
shots and putting us in other characters’ perspectives, if only for a moment.
And you slowly realize what makes Lou so terrifying: despite spending two whole
hours with him, you still have no idea who he is. Just when you think you’ve
figured him out, something happens that throws you off guard. Is he incapable
of authentic emotion or simply an expert at hiding it? Does he believe
everything he’s saying or is it all just a performance, meticulously calibrated to fit society’s expectations of how ambitious young men are supposed to act? What is
he thinking – if, indeed, he’s thinking at all? In a way, he’s a perfect mascot
for the digital age, not a person so much as the image of a person, there until
he simply isn’t.
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