The more I think about Pattinson’s performance in Cosmopolis, the more I realize how truly excellent it is. What I especially like about it is its effortlessness. Most young actors make the mistake of always trying to ratchet up the intensity and thus make the viewer keenly aware of just how hard they’re working. Everyone from Leo DiCaprio (whom I admire) to Shia LeBoeuf (whom I do not) is guilty of this. Pattinson just spits out his lines simply and directly with a kind of contemptible smirk on his face that is perfectly appropriate to the character. But then he also subtly reveals more layers to Eric Packer as the film progresses. The acting and the dialogue seem outrageously stylized in the beginning but become less so as the film progresses. The acting in the barber shop scene and in the final scene in Levin’s apartment, in particular, is surprisingly naturalistic and moving. When Pattinson sheds a tear right on cue several minutes into a single long take at the end, I was almost ready to cry with him. And then I had to ask myself, did Cronenberg and Pattinson intend for this dreamlike world to become more real or am I just getting more used to it? I think it’s the former. I hope those two team up again like Cronenberg and Mortensen did.