Dark and gritty, Nightcrawler takes viewers on a ride with Jake Gyllenhaal at the wheel. Buckle up: it’s a wild one.
I was tired the night I saw this film, having not slept well the previous night. And alas, the theater we planned to visit changed its schedule, so we had to change plans from the original late-afternoon showing. This meant dinner before the film. And dinner included a couple of margaritas. I worried, therefore, I might have a repeat of the HB2 nap. But any worry was needless: Nightcrawler allowed no sleep.
The intensity of Nightcrawler is built into the story, a story about a new freelance videographer for late-night news events—crime and tragedy—for fledgling morning news programs in southern California. But the true intensity does not come from those news stories. The true intensity comes from Jake Gyllenhall as Louis and from Louis’s socio- and psychopathy, characteristics that reveal themselves slowly, eerily, and dangerously.
As the movie begins, Gyllenhaal’s Louis shows himself as a petty criminal. When he was first on screen, I thought, “There’s that same lopsided smile and those same flirty eyes. Nothing stands out. This looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. Why all the buzz over *this* performance?” And then Louis discusses his interest in obtaining a job. And Gyllenhaal disappears from the screen, and Louis shines through.
Lou’s intelligence and lack of social cues silently scream from the screen. Nothing is overplayed, though, as each layer of Lou’s personality flash in and out as he maneuvers to get what he wants, even if not always successful. We learn quickly he’s not just a petty thief. And he’s more than merely quirky. There’s a base layer of Asperger’s, here with high language skills and an obsession of corporate strategies and success. That intelligence and obsession have morphed, though (or are signs of), into a dangerous antisocial personality disorder. His obsession leads him to study bits and pieces of corporate speak, corporate strategies, and corporate structure. And he twists these concepts to the absurd—absurd but all believable by him and by those he engages (and all much too familiar to anyone who has ever endured corporate speak).
It is with those he engages where we see the deeper level of Lou’s psychopathy emerge. He finds those who are desperate and vulnerable, whether due to lack of intelligence or failing careers. He enlists them in his ever-growing, ever-darkening schemes. He uses his online-learned corporate and business terminology to manipulate and master. Watching Lou do that was like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard, making me cringe with revulsion. After all, where is the line between the sociopathic business leader and that merely after a buck for his own wallet? (And what does this say about those CEOs who use the same language to create their own world of followers?) Like I said, I cringed with revulsion.
On the sidelines, we see those who could be a moral compass, but they don’t have the power. Instead, it seems they’re simply doing their time in their roles at the news station, waiting to leap to better positions, better times of work, better stations. Rene Russo’s character, though, knows she’s not climbing up her ladder but is instead just trying to stop the free fall of her career. Vulnerability at its finest.
The story itself plays well enough. There’s great foreshadowing in what’s coming, but even when the expected happens, I was still shocked and stunned. (Once, I actually grasped the shoulder of my movie companion, perhaps even uttering a syllable of astonishment.)
Jake Gyllenhaal astounded me. His performance is one of the highlights of the year in movies. He delivers Lou to the audience with a twisted wink (and by twisted, I’m not talking about his lopsided smile) and a painful elbow to the ribs, jabbed just hard enough to know that it wasn’t really a joke. But he smiles throughout, a smile that is the epitome of creepy. Lou puts success above all else, but his definition of success is one learned as if taking a business class watched though a kaleidoscope.
Nightcrawler as a movie is gritty. It’s intense. It’s dark. I was sucked in after a couple of minutes when it started, and I felt as if I didn’t breathe much until it was over. Buckle up.