Demolition ★★★½
DEMOLITION marks another strong entry in Jake Gyllenhaal’s interesting career.
After taking the film world by storm with Donnie Darko in 2001, he seemed to disappear until Brokeback Mountain and then Zodiac.
Again, his subsequent films between 2007 and 2012 were fine but nothing memorable.
But, starting with End of Watch and running through Enemy, Prisoners, Southpaw, Nightcrawler and now Demolition he has been on a roll, portraying a series of interesting, flawed characters.
The part of Davis in Demolition, Canadian director Jean-marc Vallee’s powerful exploration of grief, demands the same in performance, and gets it from Gyllenhaal.
Davis seemingly has the world at his feet; he is about to marry a beautiful, intelligent woman and works at her father’s investment banking business where he has the potential and position to rise quickly through the ranks.
Before we get to know Davis in any deeper way (a design of the film) he suffers a massive personal trauma and falls into a deep depression that manifests itself in an unusual way.
It begins with an argument with a troublesome vending machine at a hospital waiting room and progresses to Davis taking apart a range of machines and appliances and thus ultimately demolishing the life he has built in order to enable himself to grieve.
It’s a fascinating concept that draws the viewer fully into Davis’s mindset, even though the man himself struggles to bring any emotions to the surface. It is made even better by Gyllenhaal’s magnetic performance supported by a trio of others.
Chris Cooper is terrific as always as Davis’s father-in-law, struggling to understand the increasingly bizarre behaviour and motivations, while Naomi Watts is equally good as a woman who is drawn to Davis’s pain and tries to help him through it.
A young actor named Judah Lewis also makes an impression as Watts’ character’s son who is dealing with his own adolescent struggles and develops a nice bond with Davis.
Jean-marc Vallee previously made Dallas Buyer’s Club and Wild, both of which centred around deep character studies and strong central performances. This is another one.