Demolition (15)
two stars
Dir: Jean-Marc Vallée
With: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper
Runtime: 99 minutes
JAKE Gyllenhaal has had a funny old career since his star-making turn in 2001’s Donnie Darko. His work rate is formidable in comparison with other actors of his calibre, and he can do both blockbuster and indie with equal style. Yet it has now been a decade since that Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain. Where is the next nomination to come from?
Odds are it will not be for Demolition, a drama come bleak comedy from Jean-Marc Vallee. It is an odd picture all over, and as such fits well into the career of its always surprising director, the Montreal-born helmer of Dallas Buyers Club, Wild and The Young Victoria.
Gyllenhaal plays Davis, a Wall Street trader living in a Talking Heads song. Davis one day finds himself living in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and wondering how he got there. To make things even better, the gorgeous wife also has a dad (played by Chris Cooper) for whom Davis works. Life is going pretty well, with the only problems on the horizon strictly first world ones.
And then one day something happens to send Davis’s shiny, designer world spinning off its axis and crashing to the floor. He can either deal with this new situation, or he can throw himself wholeheartedly into a round of displacement activity. Since it would not be much of a movie if he did what the rest of us dull old bods do and just suck things up, displacement activity it is.
His new path in life starts at a vending machine which has taken his money but not delivered the goods. Davis is a reasonable guy, so he resolves to write to the firm, complaining about the machine, and asking for his money back. As you would never do. It is the first of many signs that Demolition is going to go its own sweet way with a story regardless of whether the viewer thinks it credible or not. Who are you to argue?
Davis writes such an impressive letter to the vending machine firm that one of its representatives calls him up to discuss the matter further. Karen (Naomi Watts) has been around long enough to sense there might be something else going on here, but she is far too cool to let it show. In the meantime, Davis starts on a fresh round of displacement activity, a thundering great clue to which is in the title. The trader who pushed computer buttons and pieces of paper around is now obsessed with taking things apart to see how they work. But will he be able to put them together again?
The dirty great nods, winks and metaphors arrive thick and fast as we stumble along with Davis, trying to work things out. One can see where Vallee is heading and why, and that he and his cast are trying to do so in novel ways. That, alas, is a large part of the problem - the picture is trying too hard, is too in love with coming at the viewer from left field. After a while, all this kookiness becomes exhausting then annoying.
Vallee, as seen in Dallas Buyers Club, can usually do this sort of thing well, but that strange, wonderful tale of a rodeo stud turning drug dealer for people with Aids had the virtue of being grounded in reality. It also had Matthew McConaughey on Oscar-winning form. Gyllenhaal is no slouch either, and Watts (the horribly misjudgment that was Diana aside) is always worth watching. But too much indulgence is required and credibility strained for Demolition to hang together as a coherent tale.
All credit to Gyllenhaal though for taking a punt on it. Between this, End of Watch and Nightcrawler he is showing the same sort of spirit and individuality that paid off so handsomely in Brokeback Mountain. The movies love a trier, and a risk-taker, and Gyllenhaal is both. Something to build on, definitely.
Read Rob Carnevale on Captain AmericaL: Civil War in tomorrow's Herald, or on heraldscotland.com today
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