Moira Romano

Canadian film director David Cronenberg will face stiff competition at this year’s Festival de Cannes. Cronenberg will unveil Cosmopolis, his highly anticipated psychological drama set in New York City, starring Robert Pattinson (Erick Packer) as the 28 year old billionaire who’s world is about to unravel. So far all we have seen are the trailers and the all-star cast. The movie is Cronenberg’s adaptation ofDon DeLillo’s novel by the same name. The novel received mixed reviews but the movie seems to have hit a nerve. Shot at Pinewood Toronto Studios and New York City, the story follows a young man (Erick Packer) living the kind of life we dream that young billionaire fund managers must live. Cronenberg delights in revealing characters at their most vulnerable, their most psychologically unnerved and drawing the audience into their tormented worlds. He did not earn his moniker as the King of Venereal Horror for nothing.

Cronenberg has explored many levels of human nature; seeking to reveal the close relationship between the physical and the psychological. His early films such as Videodrome (1983), about a sexually violent TV channel that alters viewers physically and mentally, won Cronenberg a Genie Award. Cronenberg was again awarded Genies for his work on Dead Ringers (1988), and in 1992 for Naked Lunch.  In 1996 the feature Crash, about people who become erotically charged by car crashes, won the Jury Special Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He has continued on with more films, gaining international attention for eXistenZ  (1999), Spider (2003), and more recently, Eastern Promises (2007), To Each His Cinema (2008) and A Dangerous Method (2012). Cronenberg is held in high regard internationally for his prowess as a director and has been spoken of in the same terms as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Jean Luc Godard and Ridley Scott, as one of the greatest directors of all-time!

Cosmopolis is a character driven drama and selecting the right cast was vital to the success of the movie. Each character has a brief, intense, intimate role on screen with Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), so each supporting character required the strength to carry that part of the story. Eric Parker is a financial god, perhaps with a troubled soul and with feet of clay. The assembled cast includes: Jay Baruchel, Kevin Durand, Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Emily Hampshire, Patricia McKenzie, Anna Hardwick, George Touliatos, Philip Nozuka, Saad Siddiqui, and K’Naan.

“Casting is a black art,” “You can kill your movie by making a mistake before you’ve even shot film.”