DEMOLITION – Review

Jake Gyllenhaal takes a sledgehammer to his grief in the flawed but well-acted DEMOLITION. It’s the story of Manhattan investment broker Davis Mitchell (Gyllenhaal), whose wife, Julia (Heather Lind), is killed in a car wreck while they’re arguing about a leaky refrigerator. Davis is uninjured and, while waiting in the emergency room’s lobby, has an encounter with a vending machine there that fails to properly dispense his peanut M&Ms. He feels little in terms of anguish over the sudden loss of his wife, even returning to work the next day. It’s that denied bag of candy that really gets under his skin so he begins writing to the vending company’s customer complaint department — long, personal letters that become a narrative device illustrating Davis’ state of mind. On the receiving end of his rants is the vending company’s owner’s wife Karen Moreno (Naomi Watts), the pot smoking mother of foul-mouthed 15-year old Chris (Judah Lewis). She calls Davis in the middle of the night to tell him that his letters made her cry. Davis and Karen are destined to meet, but not before they stalk each other for a while. Davis gets out his toolbox and begins taking things apart; the furniture, the computer, the coffeemaker, and the bathroom stalls at his office. Then starts demolishing – first a house being torn down by a construction crew, then his big-screen TV and eventually the home he shared with his late wife.

This is where DEMOLITION becomes muddled – and all over the map in its tone  -mawkish melodrama one moment, dark comedy the next. Davis looks cool smashing things, but the audience fails to share his catharsis. Gyllenhaal is superb, especially in the early scenes, but the movie is not as good as its star. As Davis gets weirder and weirder, DEMOLITION begins to feel like therapy. Anything meaningful Bryan Sipe’s script may have to say about mortality or grief is impeded by its focus on the strange specifics of this one man’s situation and the unbelievable way he handles it. Chris Cooper as Phil, Davis’ boss and the father of his late wife, balances the weirdness with a heartbreaking portrayal of a man dealing with the sorrow of a child’s death in a more conventional way – and he puts up with his son-in-law’s crap a lot longer than I would’ve. Less successful is Naomi Watts, who fails to make her wacky character seem real. Her husband’s a jerk but she’d rather build a fort out of couch cushions and make shadow puppets with Davis than start a romance (maybe it’s all that weed she smokes).

The most promising part of DEMOLITION is the friendship that forms between Davis and young Chris, who’s having his own issues with his budding homosexuality. Those scenes have a nice amusing awkwardness but there’s soooo much that’s hard to swallow in the film. Why is this customer service rep calling Davis at 2am? Is any bonded construction crew really going to let a complete stranger off the street start swinging sledgehammers alongside them? Wouldn’t the police at least show up if you were suddenly demolishing your own house with a bulldozer you bought on eBay? Would you walk away laughing after being shot twice in the chest at point-blank range, Kevlar vest or not (did he get that on eBay too?)? If DEMOLITION had been better, these things wouldn’t have bothered me, but it’s all so heavy-handed. In an early scene, Davis says in voice-over, “Everything I see now is a metaphor” as he drives by an uprooted tree. You eventually realize this is a warning about how overly-symbolic the film will be. Yes, Davis is tearing his life apart so he can figure out how to put it back together. We get it. We also get the shot of Davis strolling in slo-mo through the crowded streets of NYC while everyone else is walking backwards. And of course we get Julia’s ghost in countless visions and dreams (the actress playing her has a resemblance to Katy Perry that was a distraction to me). DEMOLITION is technically artful and director Jean-Marc Vallee (DALLAS BUYERS CLUB) handles certain scenes with exceptional grace. Yves Belanger’s cinematography is handsome, and the soundtrack is outstanding with great use of pop songs – especially Heart’s Crazy on You. DEMOLITION has its strengths but falls just short of recommendation.

2 1/2 of 5 Stars