What a waste of time Too much dialogue. The dialogue would be fun in a book, but all that dialogue in a film is too much. All characters babble on for far too long. At least 50% of the dialogue should have been ditched. (I kept pace with all the dialogue, but found it too lengthy and was often bored during this movie.) When a Shakespeare play is made into a movie they intersperse other scenes to make use of the visual nature of the cinema. I found Robert Pattinson not up to the task. Looked like he was just saying his lines, and he missed the nuance of the meaning that could have been presented. In particular the double-meaning that could be placed on many important moments.
The blue-screen out the windows of the cars was terrible. The whole thing felt like a shoddy production. The dialogue actually mentions that the car has cork soundproofing that doesn't screen out all the background noise of the streets, but inside the car it is dead silent, and there is no movement, no juddering, no change in the light reflections on the windows, no feeling of the car moving. This makes it feel staged and fake. The sex scenes are awful, especially the 2nd one. They are just trying to remember their lines and there is no chemistry between the two. I usually enjoy Cronenberg films and think I can see what he likes, so (SPOILER ALERT) it's clear to me this character is devastated by his mis-calculation and the massive losses his company will suffer. He doesn't have the balls to kill himself so he's hoping to run into someone else who will kill him. Paul Giamatti does a nice job and it's clear Paul's character won't kill Robert's character. Though I found the religious overtones with the towel over Paul's head too heavy-handed.
I see why this story appeals to some now. But recently there have been so many govts bailing out finance companies, if anything such a character these days would really not have to worry too much. Furthermore, many of the super rich have declared bankruptcy, but kept their personal wealth and gone back into remake themselves. So no, this is not a story for today. I would not recommend this film to anyone. Not even Robert Pattinson fans. Pattinson fans can see him with his shirt off. The character talks about working out and yet Pattinson has a puny body, not worth looking at. His body looks like that of a patient who is terminally ill.
The blue-screen out the windows of the cars was terrible. The whole thing felt like a shoddy production. The dialogue actually mentions that the car has cork soundproofing that doesn't screen out all the background noise of the streets, but inside the car it is dead silent, and there is no movement, no juddering, no change in the light reflections on the windows, no feeling of the car moving. This makes it feel staged and fake. The sex scenes are awful, especially the 2nd one. They are just trying to remember their lines and there is no chemistry between the two. I usually enjoy Cronenberg films and think I can see what he likes, so (SPOILER ALERT) it's clear to me this character is devastated by his mis-calculation and the massive losses his company will suffer. He doesn't have the balls to kill himself so he's hoping to run into someone else who will kill him. Paul Giamatti does a nice job and it's clear Paul's character won't kill Robert's character. Though I found the religious overtones with the towel over Paul's head too heavy-handed.
I see why this story appeals to some now. But recently there have been so many govts bailing out finance companies, if anything such a character these days would really not have to worry too much. Furthermore, many of the super rich have declared bankruptcy, but kept their personal wealth and gone back into remake themselves. So no, this is not a story for today. I would not recommend this film to anyone. Not even Robert Pattinson fans. Pattinson fans can see him with his shirt off. The character talks about working out and yet Pattinson has a puny body, not worth looking at. His body looks like that of a patient who is terminally ill.