I have said before that a single performance does not a movie make. And while I'm not going to eat my words, I should amend them. When a film is "about" (vile phrase) a single complex character, I think the actor can certainly make the film worthwhile. And when the rest of the film is pretty great by itself, this combination of talent, intelligence, and passion makes the experience truly enchanting. Such is the case with Nightcrawler.
Yet another embodiment in our culture's recent fascination with antiheroes, our titular cameraman commands our attention and demands our minds in his nightly adventures. A freelance crime photographer, he prowls the streets of Los Angeles in pursuit of carnage that he might sell to the news. Lou Bloom is a terrifying specter of a man: Isolated and desperate but wildly intelligent and ambitious, he manipulates the world around him to achieve his ends. He disturbs crime scenes to get better photographic vantages, he sabotages his competitors, and he cultivates romantic tension with his boss to stay protected.
Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of his most compelling performances yet, and one that will hopefully earn him great recognition come Oscar night. We already knew that he gets insanely dedicated to his various characters -- changing chameleon-like into everything from a geeky high-schooler to a hunky Persian prince -- but his transformation into the City of Angels' angel of death is perhaps his most astounding yet. His gaunt visage and bulging eyes are the stuff of nightmares (and of Academy favor; we've seen time and again their support of actors who drastically change their bodies for a performance), but the mind behind the visage is even more horrific. His glassy gaze tantalizingly gives us endless room to speculate, and in every moment on screen he is impossible to predict. The moments in which his vast intellect steps aside and his enigmatic soul surfaces caught my breath in an iron grip. Notably, his "what I want" speech to his boss about two-thirds of the way through the film almost knocked me out of my seat.
Rene Russo, though given less screen time than Gyllenhaal, is no less compelling as the morning news director selected by Lou Bloom to employ him. Her own attraction to the dark and dangerous "if it bleeds, it leads" motto serves as the crux of the film's satire on media. Which brings me to another point. As haunting as the film is to me, it never felt unbearably weighty or morbid. Don't get me wrong, it's a thriller through and through, but rather than wallowing in its own sinister atmosphere, Nightcrawler is also an exercise in pitch-black comedy. So much so that rather than giggle, I had to resist shuddering several times. Amazing that a film can provoke such a strong reaction, isn't it?
Writer and director Dan Gilroy, beyond writing one of the most terrifying, articulate male characters in recent memory, expertly controls the film's speed and style. It never feels overwhelmingly plot-driven, and its commentary on the news and crime never reaches beyond the film's scope. Gilroy -- in his directorial debut, no less -- understands Lou Bloom so well that he centers what could easily become a glum noir piece or an overblown action spectacle on intellectual drama (not emotional, never sentimental), making the film a pure psychological thriller. He and cinematographer Robert Elswit together fashion a palpably tense atmosphere entirely out of dramatic lighting, which is easily the most evocative I've seen this year.
IMDb: Nightcrawler
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