Kristen Stewart isn’t the only Twilight star branching out into difficult literary adaptations of stories revolving around a road trip. Robert Pattinson is similarly graduating to more grown-up, less easily digestible fare by starring in Cosmopolis, lending his natural sickly pallor and slack facial expressions to the role of a stoic young billionaire as he floats through a nightmarish New York City, his limousine-ferried journey beset by all manner of surreal horrors and the occasional disturbing sex scene. And of course, more importantly, Cosmopolis represents the first team-up between novelist Don DeLillo and director David Cronenberg, who’s perfectly matched to bring to squalid life DeLillo’s usual sense of creeping unease and themes about the crumbling delusion of the American dream. Also, the disturbing sex scenes, which he’s really good at.
This brief, European, thoroughly NSFW teaser—Nudity! Really graphic violence! Mostly nudity!—primarily makes its case through quick, jarringly disconnected images of horrible things, like Pattinson casually shooting a hole through his own hand, or a giant rat stalking the streets of Manhattan. But the overall sensation is classic Cronenberg—an intriguing, intoxicating dread, as opposed to the cautiously optimistic, yet inevitable dread evoked by the On The Road trailer. Pattinson might just win this one.