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DEMOLITION Send This Review to a Friend
Showcased at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and now commercially released, “Demolition” may have excellent acting and an intense plot, but little is credible in Bryan Sipe’s screenplay, although the direction by Jean-Marc Vallé impressively tries to make up for that.
The story involves New York investment banker Davis Mitchell, exceedingly well acted by Jake Gyllenhaal, whose wife is killed in an auto accident. He is thrown for an emotional loop, and unable to grieve properly, if there is such a thing as grieving properly, he begins to act irrationally. He is destructive to property and is constantly hostile.
When a vending machine is on the blink, he takes this to heart and writes letters of complaint to the company. They are answered by Karen, given an effective performance by Naomi Watts. Karen, who has a young son, becomes interested in Davis, with the two becoming more and more entwined.
What bothers me is that it seems very, very strange that a woman with Karen’s intelligence would not run a mile away from someone with the nutty, obnoxious behavior exhibited by Davis. ( A few woman I know tell me I’m wrong—that many women are drawn to such impossible men.)
Davis increasingly annoys his grieving father-in-law and boss, finely played by Chris Cooper, who is aghast when Davis shows up with Karen at a memorial for his dead wife. Other mourners are also appalled.
The thrust of the film is arriving at a point at which Davis can finally face his loss more rationally, but there has been a lot of emotional and physical havoc until we arrive at that point, and when it happens, after a particularly destructive property rampage, the lack of credibility still remains. A Fox Searchlight release. Reviewed April 8, 2016.
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