Demolition (2016)
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
An emotionally desperate investment banker finds hope through a woman he meets.
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27 films that influenced Demolition
What critics say influenced Demolition
Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition attempts to update American Beauty ’s precarious mix of satire and wish fulfillment for the post-Recession era, complete with quirky voice-over, fantasy sequences, a soundtrack of generational-nostalgia signifiers and classic rock, and a WASP protagonist who shows his disaffection with privilege by applying for a working-class job and befriending gay men and surly teenagers, here merged into a single character.
This is not an entirely fair criticism of Demolition, for stories of mid-life crises are recycled ad nauseam (Birdman, Lost in Translation, American Beauty, Falling Down, Hannah and her Sisters, 8½, Last Tango in Paris, I could go on) and so trying to recapture the novelty such a story had is a difficulty in of itself.
The yuppie-finding-his-soul scenario is a very old and not particularly compelling one, and the fact that this film borrows elements from “ Regarding Henry ,” “ American Beauty ,” Saul Bellow’s “Herzog,” and the Jim Carrey “Liar, Liar,” for heaven’s sake, does not exactly redound to its benefit.
Vallee's attempts to fix Gyllenhaal's character as an otherworldly figure in the everyday world provides little in the face of Bryan Sipe's simplistic screenplay, which appears to believe that the likes of American Beauty are too subtle for their own good.
Comparisons to American Beauty are not uncalled for, especially when Chris Cooper is right there to reinforce them.
Chris Cooper, who plays Davis’s unhelpful father-in-law, is on hand to remind us of the superficially similar American Beauty.
Reminiscent of earlier parables of nonconformity in which professional men in midlife crises “drop out” or are saved by lovable “kooks,” it’s like a nightmare combination of A Thousand Clowns and Petulia.
If Fight Club and Ordinary People had a baby, it would be like Demolition—but better.
Davis’ mid-life crisis recalls American Beauty and Fight Club (“I am Davis’ sense of resentment”), especially as his letters begin to include wide-eyed, inane observations about the world.
Demolition is first and foremost a movie about grief, and how everyone deals with it in different ways, but it’s as unconventional as you can get, with a dark comic tone that mirrors something like Fight Club or American Psycho.
Demolition is first and foremost a movie about grief, and how everyone deals with it in different ways, but it’s as unconventional as you can get, with a dark comic tone that mirrors something like Fight Club or American Psycho.
Davis’s problem is that he doesn’t feel much of anything; he’s a more functional, socialized version of Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho.”
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The movies have long dealt with the aftermath of grief, particularly grief over a lost spouse: Who can forget poor Demi Moore alone at that potter's wheel in Ghost , or teary Ryan O'Neal mooning over Ali MacGraw in Love Story ?
But Demolition plays like a failed iteration of a 1970s angry-misfit movie (think Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces), not like the real thing.
The yuppie-finding-his-soul scenario is a very old and not particularly compelling one, and the fact that this film borrows elements from “ Regarding Henry ,” “ American Beauty ,” Saul Bellow’s “Herzog,” and the Jim Carrey “Liar, Liar,” for heaven’s sake, does not exactly redound to its benefit.
When, in Michael Haneke’s “The Seventh Continent” (1989), a father led his family in the Davis-like destruction of their home, you knew that there could be only one conclusion.
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He has been on a hot streak, too, having overseen the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club and the Oscar-nominated Wild.
Director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild) doesn’t seem to mind when his movies become sun-dappled insta-redemption stories so long as there’s a bravura central turn holding it all down.
But though Vallée ( Dallas Buyers Club , Wild ) has a very fine sense for performance, and gets the cast in tune with the broadly drawn, seriocomic tone, his inclination to let actors set the frame is often at odds with Bryan Sipe’s artificial and deliberately contrived screenplay.
After making prestige pictures like Wild, Dallas Buyers Club and The Young Victoria, Vallée has returned with a more flavorful film.
Director Jean-Marc Vallée, whose last two films (Wild and Dallas Buyers Club) both made my 10 Best lists in their respective years, finds himself working from a shakier script this time around, with writer Bryan Sipe cramming his pages with all manner of daft incidents that might best be described as precious.
Jake Gyllenhaal has really turned around his career over the past few years with character-driven films like “ Nightcrawler ,” “Enemy” and “Prisoners,” so it only seems natural that he would want to collaborate with Jean-Marc Vallée, the Canadian-born director who led Matthew McConaughey to Oscar gold in “ Dallas Buyers Club ” and helped revive Reese Witherspoon ’s career with “Wild.”
He has been on a hot streak, too, having overseen the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club and the Oscar-nominated Wild.
The latest from Wild director Jean-Marc Vallée stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a grieving widower who gives his life a total rethink, post-catastrophe.
But though Vallée ( Dallas Buyers Club , Wild ) has a very fine sense for performance, and gets the cast in tune with the broadly drawn, seriocomic tone, his inclination to let actors set the frame is often at odds with Bryan Sipe’s artificial and deliberately contrived screenplay.
After making prestige pictures like Wild, Dallas Buyers Club and The Young Victoria, Vallée has returned with a more flavorful film.
Director Vallee ( The Dallas Buyers Club , Wild ) has created an unconventional dramedy about a man with an empty heart who is pulled back into the land of the living by his father-in-law, his newfound friend, and her gay son.
It’s an understatement to say the movie is directed with a heavy a metaphorical hand by Jean-Marc Vallee (“Wild”), working from a weak script by Bryan Sipe (“The Choice”).