Cosmopolis
Eric Packer owns almost everything money can buy. By the end of one journey across Manhattan, he may have nothing left.
Director
David Cronenberg
Release
15 June 2012
Runtime
109 Minutes
Certificate
15
Synopsis
Eric Packer is 28 years old, spectacularly wealthy and accustomed to living inside a world built around him. One morning, he decides he needs a haircut. Normally that wouldn't be particularly complicated. But Eric wants to cross Manhattan in his enormous limousine to visit the barber his father used to take him to. Outside, the city is grinding to a halt. The US president is visiting. Anti-capitalist protesters are filling the streets. Traffic barely moves. And somewhere during the journey, Eric's financial empire begins collapsing. From inside the insulated world of his limousine, Eric continues conducting business, meeting advisers, receiving medical examinations and watching the systems that made him enormously rich begin turning against him. His fortune is disappearing. His marriage is disintegrating. And he's been warned that somebody may be planning to kill him. Still, Eric wants his haircut.
The Movie Trailer
Eric Packer spends much of his life insulated from the ordinary world.
His limousine is more than transportation.
It's an office, meeting room and protective shell separating him from the city outside.
Eric has made an enormous financial bet against the Chinese yuan.
He's convinced the market will eventually behave according to his calculations.
It doesn't.
As the limousine crawls through Manhattan, Eric continues pouring money into the position.
The losses become staggering.
People enter and leave the vehicle.
Employees deliver information.
Advisers discuss money, technology and the increasingly unstable world outside.
Eric's doctor even performs his daily medical examination without requiring him to leave the car.
Meanwhile, Eric repeatedly encounters his new wife, Elise Shifrin.
Their marriage is wealthy, distant and strangely disconnected.
As the day progresses, the city becomes increasingly chaotic.
Anti-capitalist protesters attack symbols of wealth and power.
Eric's security chief warns him about a credible threat against his life.
And his financial position continues to deteriorate.
Yet Eric keeps moving towards the barber shop.
The journey gradually strips away the structures surrounding him.
Money.
Security.
Technology.
Status.
Control.
By the time Eric reaches the other side of Manhattan, the billionaire who began the day believing he could understand and predict almost anything is confronted by a world that refuses to behave according to his calculations.
ERIC PACKER
Eric Has Built a World Where Almost Everything Can Be Predicted
Eric's wealth hasn't simply bought him possessions.
It's let him build an environment designed to eliminate uncertainty.
Information reaches him instantly.
Employees appear when required.
Technology measures a world Eric believes can ultimately be reduced to patterns, numbers and probabilities.
Then one currency refuses to behave.
At first, it's simply another financial problem to solve.
But Eric's refusal to accept that his model could be wrong turns a bad position into something that could destroy his fortune.
For someone accustomed to controlling everything, being wrong may be the one possibility he never properly calculated.
THE LIMOUSINE
Eric Can See Manhattan Through the Glass Without Really Living in It
Most of Cosmopolis takes place inside an extraordinary bubble.
Eric's limousine allows him to move through New York without truly participating in it.
Business meetings happen inside.
Medical examinations happen inside.
Technology brings the markets inside.
The city becomes something viewed through a window.
But the insulation isn't perfect.
Protests grow outside.
Threats become more immediate.
The further Eric travels, the less protection his wealth seems able to provide.
The limousine may separate him from the world.
It can't stop that world from changing.
THE COLLAPSE
The Man Who Can Afford Everything Becomes Fascinated by Losing It
At some point, Eric's behaviour stops looking like an attempt to save his fortune.
The destruction itself begins to feel attractive.
Money has insulated him from ordinary consequences for so long that losing it offers something wealth no longer can.
Uncertainty.
Risk.
Perhaps even fear.
His journey across Manhattan therefore becomes more than a very expensive trip to the barber.
It's the gradual dismantling of the systems Eric has used to define himself.
By the time he reaches his destination, the question isn't simply how much money remains.
It's what remains of Eric when the money stops protecting him.