These days it’s hard not to be preoccupied with the pandemic. Are you constantly refreshing the news? Stuck on social media? If so, here are three films about obsession to help you get out of your head and into someone else’s.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo are all in peak form in David Fincher’s Zodiac. The film follows Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist turned writer who becomes consumed with finding the identity of the Zodiac killer. While the early parts of the film are concerned with the Zodiac Killer’s crimes, the majority of the movie is spent following Graysmith as he becomes singularly obsessed with the Zodiac killer. Based on Graysmith’s real-life memoir, Zodiac is part police-procedural, part thriller and proves that films can be scary without venturing into horror movie territory. In true Fincher fashion, the film is dark and moody, and with a run time of 2 hours 42 minutes, it’s sure to keep you occupied.
In Ex Machina, the brilliant, reclusive tech mogul, Nathan (a stellar Oscar Isaac) invites a low-level employee, Caleb (Domhall Gleeson) to his personal compound turned A.I. research facility. Here, Caleb meets Ava, a robot who is seemingly sentient. Thus lies the obsessions of this film: Nathan’s obsession with god-like control and Caleb’s growing obsession with Ava. Visually stunning and at times almost unbearably tense, Ex Machina is not afraid to take on big ideas. It’s a film about both humanity’s relationships with A.I. and men’s idealization of the perfect woman. It begins as a slow burn and ends with a big pay-off you won’t soon forget.
Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring takes on a different type of obsession: that certain type of celebrity that existed during the peak of reality television. Here, a group of teenagers who are obsessed with celebrity (lead by Emma Watson) start robbing the same people they idolize. Based on a true story, the friends burgle celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan by utilizing social media to tell when the celebrities are out of town. The teens care less about the prizes they steal and more about being close to celebrities and inhabiting their world. Come for Emma Watson’s perfect delivery of the line “I wanna rob” and stay for the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing the teenagers loot designer clothes and Louis Vuitton handbags.
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~Posted by Danielle J.
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