Demolition

The investment broker Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is married with Julia (Heather Lind) and works at his father-in-law's firm in New York City. One day, Julia is driving her car with Davis and another car crashes and kills Julia. In the hospital, Davis purchases a chocolate bar in a vendor machine but the candy is stuck in the machine. Davis writes a strange letter to the owner of the piece of equipment reporting the malfunction and the costumer service representative Karen Moreno (Naomi Watts) contacts him. Meanwhile he becomes unstable and obsessed with a weird behavior at work and his father-in-law Phil Eastwood (Chris Cooper) asks him to take some days off. Davis befriends the pothead Karen and her gay teenage son Chris (Judah Lewis) while he tries to erase his former life and build a new one. "Demolition" is an overrated film with a messy story and great cast. The attitude of Davis Mitchell grieving the loss of his wife is awkward. His friendship with Karen is terrible and quite inexplicable even for a seriously disturbed man. His decision to literally demolish his loveless married life destroying everything is ridiculous. But the worst is when he learns that he was a cuckold and begins to honor Julia. Summarizing, an awful story. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): "Demolição" ("Demolition")

Choppy editing issues, But superb. For starters the film has some incredible acting...Jake is utterly convincing in his role as a selfish and seemingly heartless individual devoid of emotion until tragedy entails. The pick up in his thought process is a slow but necessary approach as his mental health issues pick up subtle but convincing time frames and the viewer is left a 50/50 decision on whether you actually like him or not. This is no mean feat for an actor with such a tragic story line and he pulls it off brilliantly. I would however of liked the mental health issues that surround the process of grief further explored and a stronger message to go out to the audience that grief manifests in so many individual ways that you are never wrong with the way you feel...Its a very precious and intimate individual process. Naomi Watts character is a little bizarre and almost unnecessary in my view but I will not spoil anything here. A good just under two hours spent in my opinion with a a lot of thinking to continue for the rest of the evening. A solid 7/10 from me.

It is heavy, it is depressing in bits and clever the other times and it flows. There isn't a dull moment it doesn't pace up or pace doesn't. It only has dialogues where necessary. What you do see is a man dealing with the death of his wife and understanding his relationship and life. Not the way most of us do, but by destroying everything. I love jake Gyllenhaal more with every new film of his, no one could have played the better than him.

And that's about what I did at the end of this roller coaster movie. So many reviews here obsess on the supposed "grief" or "grieving process" Davis Mitchell is going through due to the death of his wife. Really? Did they actually watch the movie? Davis becomes self possessed and is rebelling against the decision he made to marry the "rich girl' Julia! That's what this movie is about - self indulgence & rebelling - not grieving! Davis even tells Karen he married Julia because "it was convenient" in other words he sold himself out. He grew-up in an economic level that was equal to Karen's current life style. Therefore he connected with her and her son so easily. Davis's path of destruction is his effort to disconnect from the demanding lifestyle he was expected to live with his rich wife Julia and her very wealthy parents. His father-in-law Phil gives Davis a very nice job in his investment firm even after he told Davis he did not like him. We are lead to believe that Phil learns to like Davis but it is obvious both of them only tolerated one another. Phil accepted Davis only because he made a lot of money for the investment firm and his daughter married him! Davis only achieves demolishing his relationship with his co-workers, his in-laws, and his own possessions! Then out of the blue he learns 'the big secret' and decides to be a thoughtful former son-in-law. While visiting the grave of his wife he learns another lesson about how wrong he was about everything! At movies end Director: Jean-Marc Vallée throws in a rather surreal Disney like sweetness to close out this flop of a movie. Almost two hours of movie about this fool and my last thought was WTF!

I feel like it had so much potential in the story and characters. As it is, it's just a very jumbled mess, with some really questionable editing. I do find Jake Gyllenhaal's character really intriguing though, and I thought he did some really strong work. I just wish it had a better grasp on the characters. I can't say I didn't find it very watchable though, and I would say it's better than many of the reviews suggest. I hope Jake can get some end-of-the-year traction for this, but I really doubt it. He's endlessly fascinating and very mesmerizing, and definitely carries the film more than the screenplay does. Not sure, perhaps this is a film only a select few will enjoy.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Opens with a car crash that takes the life of Jake Gyllenhaal's character's wife. From there this movie swung in a different direction than I thought. For me it seems to be about how someone deals with grief. Everyone around his character wants/expects him to be acting in a certain way. His wife's death has changed his outlook on life and those around him eventually become less comfortable with his behaviour. I really enjoyed Jake's performance. His character is weird (Not Nightcrawler weird), funny, angry and ultimately just figuring out how to grieve. For a movie I was expecting to lean into the sentimentality it played out in a different way that I feel is a bit more true to real life. It didn't win him any awards but I think the acting in this places it as one of the better movies Jake has done.

if i get a hammer to someone and start filming him I can make better than this. Honestly it is not worth being called a movie. the only positive point worth to be mentioned is Jake Gyllenhaal just spectacular as always. Other than that, it is not worth a F. Review asks for 10 lines but honestly it is not even worth that much of words. You wanna waste couple of hours of your life? watch this. BY the way who goes through this way of mental break down? It is more like a girlish wish of love from their husband after their death. How is it? romantically crazy, meaningless, stupid but with the passed-away wive's memories in the center of whole universe. no two sequence of the whole plot are in correspondence to each other.

I went into watching this movie with no expectations, without even seeing the trailer and trust me that's the best way of seeing this film. Demolition shocks you in the beginning and then you can follow a numb recovery mixed with dark humour, where someone has to deal with losing a person closest to them. While trying to move forward the Davis also has to look back into his life and relationship to make sense of it all. The acting is superb especially on the part of Jake Gyllenhaal and it engulfs you in a sea of varying emotions where sometimes you're laughing and then you might be crying.

I'm the kind of guy who buries everything deep down. If someone close to me died, you wouldn't know it unless I told you. If I got fired or failed a class, my general demeanor wouldn't change enough to be noticeable. I internalize everything, burying it deep down inside and doing my best to ignore until eventually, it just goes away or the world solves the problem for me. It's a quietly destructive system of dealing with hardships, but from my experience I think I would prefer it to the alternate, more vocal and public approach. People often deem this method unhealthy, something I vehemently disagree with. I'm a put together individual, relatively mature and pretty steadfast in my fundamental beliefs and morality, especially considering I'm 19. Demolition is one of the first films I've seen that seemed to reflect my methods for dealing with stress (on some level anyways) that didn't ultimately indict them. I loved it. As a film, Demolition is a quiet powerhouse of emotion. Jake Gyllenhaal continues to justify his standing as one of the finest actors working right now, giving a quiet and darkly comedic performance that is absolutely fundamental to the success of the film. Naomi Watts, an incredible actress in her own right, seems a bit off kilter and awkward, but so is the character she is playing so I have no issues with her work here either. Jean-Marc Vallee's direction here is great as well, weaving a sort of confused story together through effective editing and a fundamental loyalty to the subdued mentality of it's protagonist. A quick look at RottenTomatoes and I see that many are calling this a "slog", or a film that doesn't necessarily reflect the tragedy of it's narrative. But Demolition takes place within Gyllenhaal's head, attempting to cinematically represent the process of internalizing grief and strife, which I feel inherently lends itself to a subdued atmosphere. But the moments that need to land do, mostly consisting of another character desperately trying to salvage any sort of emotional response from Gyllenhaal. I found the film to be profoundly relatable, perhaps the most I've ever seen in it's interpretation of grief and loss. Now let me make a few things clear. I'm 19, so I've never lost a wife, a child or a parent. I've never torn down my house or taken apart my fridge, and I've never really dealt with any stress outside of relationships (romantic and platonic), grandparents passing or dogs dying, school related stress or financial concerns. But stress is relative, and I saw myself in Gyllenhaal's journey. There was no scene with him crying himself to sleep, or breaking down at the deceased's gravestone. No constant screaming, anguish or turmoil. Life went on, and only those around him aroused any emotion following his wife's death. It's a fundamentally human film, masquerading as an absurdist comedy while dealing with some of life's most confounding scenarios. It's a film that tracks Gyllenhaal's breakdown, bravely painted with humor and melancholy alone. And amidst that insincerity the film finds some beauty in the breakdown, as Gyllenhaal eventually finds his answers within the rubble of his old life. I can sympathize with Demolition's detractors, but personally I found something really beautiful that I hope to cling to and appreciate further as I mature. I found a film that doesn't malign my mentality towards adversity, but rather explores it and tries to understand it. It's a film with sympathy for it's conflicted protagonist, and subsequently I found sympathy for myself in there as well. A personal favorite.