Demolition (2016) review

(Note: The following is a full review of one of the films that I had previously covered in my ‘2016 SXSW Film Festival Recap’ post. For a quick refresher on what I said in that post, click Here. But for now, here’s my review of my favorite film from this year’s festival, Demolition).

I’ll admit that when I first went down to SXSW a few weeks ago, initially I wasn’t sure if I was going to see Demolition there, the newest film from Jean-Marc Vallee, the director of recent award-winning hits Dallas Buyers Club and Wild. However, on the second day of the festival I went to a panel featuring Jake Gyllenhaal that was moderated by director David Gordon Green, who’s working with Gyllenhaal on a film called Stronger centered around a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombings. During this panel, Gyllenhaal talked a bit about Demolition and even showed the trailer for it. And it was in that moment when I decided to finally see the film, which premiered that very same night at the Paramount Theater. And I’m glad that I did because it ended up being my favorite out of all of the films that I saw while at SXSW. On that note, I’m fairly surprised that this film has only been getting mixed reviews from critics. At the moment, it has an even 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So in other words, this is definitely one of those cases of a film that I believe is way better than what that rating suggests, though at the same time I do recognize that it won’t work for everyone. Demolition is quite a fascinating film as it somehow manages to be a well-balanced dramedy despite the fact that, on the surface, its overall execution makes it seem like it wouldn’t. While the overall plot of the film is serious in nature, director Marc-Vallee injects a solid amount of humor into it by means of the crazy shenanigans that the main character gets into after the accident that changes his life forever. And ultimately it does work, resulting in a story that is both funny and emotionally poignant when it needs to be.

The film immediately opens with investment banker Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his wife Julia (Heather Lind) getting into a car crash while they’re driving into New York City, resulting in the death of the latter. This loss ends up being extremely rough for both Davis and Julia’s parents; her father Phil (Chris Cooper), who is Davis’ boss at the company he works for, and her mother Margot (Polly Draper), who wasn’t speaking to Julia at the time of her death. While at the hospital, Davis tries to get some Peanut M&M’s from one of their vending machines. However, the machine ends up malfunctioning on him in that moment. This then leads to him actually writing a complaint letter to the company who manufactures the machines, Champion Vending Company. Ultimately, Davis ends up writing four letters to the company in which he begins to delve more into his life. His letters end up catching the attention of the company’s customer service representative Karen Moreno (Naomi Watts) and the two strike up a friendship, with Davis also befriending Karen’s delinquent son Chris (Judah Lewis). It is during this time where Davis tries to adjust to life without Julia. Initially feeling rather hollow for reasons he can’t explain, Davis soon embarks on a personal journey which sees him beginning to deconstruct the life that he once knew, both figuratively and literally.  

This film pulls off quite the balancing act in regards to being both a drama and a comedy. Now obviously the idea of a film about a guy who loses his wife in a car accident being ‘a comedy’ is one that on paper shouldn’t work in any way whatsoever. After all, the loss of a loved one is no laughing matter. However, somehow, someway, this film manages to make its comedy work because it comes from how Davis initially deals with life after the accident and not from the accident itself. The majority of the events in this film occur just because of one slight incident involving a vending machine that most of us would get over pretty quickly. But Davis gets so worked up over it that he actually writes a letter to the vending machine company. What then follows is a series of crazy shenanigans that Davis gets into, which mostly consist of him tearing stuff apart. But then the film’s third act hits and that’s where the film really starts to delve into the more dramatic and emotional parts of the story. And while it may seem like this shift is rather jarring, it actually isn’t. And ultimately that’s because we’ve been having such a great time watching Davis get into all of these shenanigans that by the time he really starts to cope with the loss of his wife, he does have our sympathy. As a result, the emotional catharsis that he reaches by the end of the film is very satisfying. I mean sure, his ways of coping are pretty extreme and are by no means how most people would react in a situation like this. Still, it is pretty interesting to watch at the same time because it very much goes against the norm.

Now that Leonardo DiCaprio has finally won his Oscar, I’d say it’s about time to give Jake Gyllenhaal an Oscar of his own because he’s been long overdue for one. He probably won’t win it for this film but Gyllenhaal absolutely shines in the role of Davis, arguably one of the best performances of his career. He has great comedic timing for the more humorous parts of the film but when it gets to the more emotional moments of the plot, he shines there too and allows us to sympathize with him even if his coping methods are rather out there. Equally terrific are Naomi Watts and Chris Cooper as Davis’ new friend Karen and father-in-law Phil, respectively. Davis and Karen are very much kindred spirits in a way as both are shown to dealing with some messed-up things in their lives. Gyllenhaal and Watts share a nice chemistry without their characters ever delving into anything resembling a romantic relationship for the entire duration of the film. As for Chris Cooper, he delivers what is quite frankly the most emotional performance in the entire film. He perfectly captures the personal turmoil that his character is going through having just lost his daughter, which very much connects to what happened to Cooper in real life when his son died from epilepsy in 2005. And in the scenes where he angrily confronts Gyllenhaal over how he’s been behaving recently, you really do understand where he’s coming from because even though Davis is the main character, in some ways we can be just as frustrated with him as Phil is. Because yeah, Davis’ ways of coping with his wife’s death are strange… very strange.  

I find that when it comes to dramedies, most of them end up being more dramatic in tone with little to no humor to be found. Demolition is one of those rare dramedies that I feel is perfectly balanced in both genres. Because while there is a good amount of humor in this film, it’s not primarily meant to be a ‘comedy’. After all, you would never consider a story in which a man copes with the loss of his wife a ‘comedy’ now, would you? No you wouldn’t but Demolition actually does succeed in implementing comedy into its story by the admittedly rather kooky ways in which Davis acts following this tragedy. But the great thing about the comedy in this film is that it doesn’t overshadow the emotional drive of the story and the film’s final act wisely does away with the comedy and really gets down to the nitty gritty. And because the film’s more comedic moments allowed for us to like Davis as a character, we very much feel for him when he finally reaches emotional catharsis over his situation. Of course part of that is thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal’s terrific performance in the role, as he too finds the right balance between comedic timing and emotional vulnerability. Thanks to his performance, the equally excellent performances from his co-stars, the strong direction of Marc-Vallee, and Bryan Sipe’s well-written screenplay, Demolition is a fantastic film that succeeds in being both knee-slapping hilarious and emotionally poignant at just the right moments.  

Rating: 5/5!