Demolition
Jake Gyllenhaal smashes it…
What fascinates Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée, it seems, are individuals in crisis, people driven to desperate measures. In Dallas Buyers Club Matthew McConaughey’s defiant AIDS victim (a role that netted him an Oscar) takes on the system to get himself and his fellow sufferers the drugs they’re denied. Reese Witherspoon in Wild sets out to right her screwed-up life by solo-hiking the 1,000-plus miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. And now, in Demolition, he’s got Jake Gyllenhaal as Davis Mitchell, an NYC investment banker who’s cauterised his emotions to such a degree that, when his lovely wife dies in a brutal car crash, he finds himself incapable of grief. So he takes it out in, precisely, demolition – smashing up his life both socially and physically, starting with the fridge and ending up with his house.
In the hands of the wrong director or given a miscast lead actor, this storyline could have come across as ludicrously clumsy. But Vallée’s nervy style and taut, disjunctive editing mesh perfectly with Gyllenhaal’s clenched intensity to craft a film that’s at once farcical and unexpectedly moving, the pair holding it together like a high-wire act. There’s fine support, too, from Chris Cooper as Davis’ tight-buttoned, resentful father-in- law, Naomi Watts as the fragile single mother who finds herself drawn into trying to console him, and newcomer Judah Lewis as her conflicted, sexually confused son with whom Davis forms an unlooked-for bond. But it’s Gyllenhaal who drives the action, giving us a portrait of emotional dysfunction that’s close kin to his coldly calculating crime reporter in Nightcrawler.
Vallée shadows his lead character’s unleashed behaviour by deconstructing his movie, throwing in bizarre flash inserts (an animated talking frog briefly shows up a couple of times) and darting off on unexpected tangents. Demolition baffles, bemuses and misdirects on its way to finding itself, much as Davis does; but if you hang on in there, it’s well worth the ride. THE VERDICT An offbeat, disruptive treatment of grief, shot through with flashes of manic humour, and played to the hilt by Jake Gyllenhaal at the top of his game. › Certificate 15 Director Jean-Marc Vallée Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Polly Draper, Judah Lewis Screenplay Bryan Sipe Distributor 20th Century Fox Running time 101 mins