I was thoroughly entertained during Demolition, but I’m very ambivalent about just why that was.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays a corporate striver who suddenly loses his wife in a car accident and then, well, he loses it. He has what we used to call a Nervous Breakdown (I don’t what the current euphemism is), and it’s a doozy. His behavior becomes strange and then bizarre – and we can’t keep our eyes off him.
And that’s what causes my ambivalence. In real life, nervous breakdowns aren’t very entertaining. The folks who suffer may pull the covers up over their heads, lapse into sobbing or catatonia or panic attacks – it’s just not fun to watch. But Gyllenhaal gets to do a goofy dance through crowded Manhattan streets, demolish stuff without committing vandalism, and it’s all great fun.
Demolition poses the question of whether this guy was a wackadoodle all along whose marital routine was keeping him functional – or whether he really loved his wife and the sheer grief from her loss knocked him for a loop. We find out at the end, but it’s really not that important.
Our hero encounters a woman who’s a bit of an oddball (Naomi Watts) and her kid, a smart and creative boy who is heading into adolescence with a major identity issue.
Chris Cooper and Polly Draper are superb as Gyllenhaal’s grieving in-laws. Cooper is also Gyllenhaal’s boss and brilliantly modulates his responses as he tries to be appropriately sympathetic and supportive – until Gyllenhall’s behavior becomes just too bizarre and offensive. Draper has a smaller role, but gets to deliver a stunning monologue near the end. Judah Davis is exceptional as the kid.
If you look at Gyllenhaal’s body of work (Donnie Darko, The Good Girl, Brokeback Mountain, Zodiac, End of Watch, Prisoners, Nightcrawler), you first note that he’s in some very good movies, movies that are that good because of his performances. And you see that his characters range from the tightly wound to the maladjusted to the way-out-there cra-cra. If you need an actor from the post-Nicholas Cage generation to play “tortured”, Jake’s your guy.
Gyllenhaal is so charismatic that Demolition is entertaining (unless you overthink it, as I did).