Here's Murtada with the week's most interesting casting news.
Robert Pattinson is starring in Claire Denis’ next movie. Are we being punked? No. Actually to judge from his last few choices it's just another day, another auteur. He’s becoming a top director magnet and has been using his bankability to make interesting choices. He’s confirmed as the lead of Denis’ untitled first English language film. The story is set in space in a “future that seems like the present” with Pattinson reportedly playing an astronaut.
This particular project is intriguing beyond Pattinson. Denis of course is reason enough to be excited. Her last movie Bastards (2013) may have been less heralded than usual but it was a provocative visceral experience. Collaborating with her on the screenplay is novelist Zadie Smith (On Beauty, White Teeth) whose books have always been cinematic and full of fallible compelling characters. Smith writing her first screenplay? Now that’s exciting!
Pattinson with Cronenberg at the Cosmopolis Cannes premiere in 2012
Post Twilight Pattinson hasn’t done any big studio movies or attempted to secure another franchise. It’s been indie movies all the way. Albeit with established directors. He’s certainly trying and his bankability ensures that he stays at the top of casting lists. But where’s the acting and/or magnetic screen presence? He’s been mostly wan or at best pleasant. His committed go-for-broke performance in David Michod’s The Rover was polarising and the movie fared worse than Michod’s Animal Kingdom. Some may have enjoyed him becoming David Cronenberg’s recent muse in Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars. However he was the least interesting actor in both. And as far as muses go, going from Viggo Mortensen to Pattinson is certainly not an upgrade.
So what do these directors see in him? It can't just be the fame. Yes he's a name that can get a movie financed but so far none of these post Twilight movies have fired up the box office. Maybe those of us who are not fans are missing something? Already this year Pattinson has appeared on the festival circuit with Anton Corbijn’s Life (playing a reporter who’s writing a story about Dane DeHaan’s James Dean) and Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert as T. E. Lawrence to Nicole Kidman’s Gertrude Bell. He got some positive reviews for the former while being mostly ignored for the latter. He’s charging forward though with a few more projects on the docket. Maybe one of them will do the trick.
as T.E. Lawrence in Queen of the Desert
Let’s see who Pattinson is working with next in addition to Denis:
- James Gray in The Lost City of Z (set in the 1920s about a legendary expedition in the jungles of the Amazon in search of a fabled civilization).
- Brady Corbet in Childhood of a Leader (might be most interesting in relation to Pattinson because it's a fellow actor making his first film as a director).
- Harmony Korine in The Trap (a supporting part in a revenge tale set in the Miami music scene).
- Ben and Joshua Safdie in Good Time (plot details are sketchy but the Safdie brothers found critical success with the addiction drama Heaven Knows Best).
Which of these upcoming collaborations do you think will bring forth a new facet of Pattinson’s talent?