\u201cTwilight\u201d is in the rearview mirror, but he stands by the series even as he\u2019s celebrated at Cannes for his turn as an inept bad guy in \u201cGood Time.\u201d<\/b>
\nCANNES, France \u2014 On Wednesday, I had an espresso with Robert Pattinson on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Mediterranean.
That is the kind of preposterous sentence that a critic sometimes finds herself writing from the Cannes Film Festival, where Mr. Pattison\u2019s new movie, \u201cGood Time, \u201d is in competition. The next morning, the movie shook up a largely listless event that has been stuffed with near-misses and entries that tend to preach at viewers or punish them, often both. \u201cGood Time, \u201d by contrast, is pure cinematic pleasure about an often funny, sometimes shocking rush into the abyss, one that earned Mr. Pattinson a lot of critical love here if no awards.
Mr. Pattinson plays Constantine Nikas, a.k.a. Connie, a calamitously inept bad guy who, during one terrible New York adventure, leaves ruin and broken bodies in his wake. Directed by the brothers Josh and Benny Safdie, \u201cGood Time\u201d is thrillingly energetic and focused. It doesn\u2019 t peddle a message or redemption, but instead tethers you to an oblivious narcissist who pushes the story into an ever-deepening downward spiral. As errors turn into catastrophes, Connie grows increasingly feral, becoming a character who is a biliously funny reproach to the American triumphalism that suffuses superhero flicks and indies alike and insists that success isn\u2019 t just inevitable but also a birthright.
\u201cGood Time\u201d is part of a fascinating course correction undertaken by Mr. Pattinson, who in recent years has appeared and almost disappeared in art cinema titles like \u201c The Childhood of a Leader \u201d and \u201c The Lost City of Z.\u201d Although he brushed against blockbuster fame playing a doomed character in the \u201c Harry Potter \u201d franchise, he became a global name in the role of Edward Cullen, the pallid vampire heartthrob in the \u201cTwilight\u201d series. That celebrity turned frenzied when Mr. Pattinson and his co-star Kristen Stewart began a long on-and-off relationship that quickly turned into fodder for the publicity grinder and was almost inevitably folded into the \u201cTwilight\u201d brand and saga.
During his \u201cTwilight\u201d years, Mr. Pattinson was not always treated kindly by critics who did not necessarily see beyond his beauty or his utility as one of that series\u2019 cinematic objects of desire. Unlike Ms. Stewart, he also did not have an earlier body of work that indicated he could do more than pout prettily, even if his turns in small movies like \u201cRemember Me\u201d (2010) showed promise. It was, however, \u201c Cosmopolis, \u201d the 2012 dystopian fantasy from David Cronenberg, based on the Don DeLillo novel, that effectively set Mr. Pattinson\u2019s career path. \u201cI think it was the first time when I worked on something that was quite complex, \u201d he said.
\u201cCosmopolis\u201d was, he added, essentially the first movie he made after he finished the final chapter of the \u201cTwilight\u201d series. \u201cI especially love the fact that it came out really at the height of my popularity, \u201d he said. Cast as a master of the universe who endures a spectacular, increasingly violent and humiliating fall, Mr. Pattinson sees the movie as \u201cthe big turning point for me \u2014 I just realized that was what I wanted to do.\u201d
Mr. Cronenberg had made a movie without a mold, and his star became eager to follow suit. \u201cI think it\u2019s so rare for something to break a pattern, \u201d Mr. Pattinson continued. \u201cI feel like almost everything in the world is designed to be predictable.\u201d
Movie stardom depends on charisma and that alchemical quality called presence, as well as a certain amount of predictability and patterns, genres and types. But longevity means occasionally breaking patterns. Mr. Pattinson is clearly set on avoiding obviousness, and this may be why, instructively, he has gravitated toward roles that call for his characters to undergo punishing physical abuse \u2014 they\u2019 ve been beaten, throttled, shot and endured a proctologist\u2019s probing \u2014 as if he were trying to expunge the last trace of Edward. This at times seems to go beyond the showy, self-regarding transformations that stars like to take on, into a deeper transfiguration.
It\u2019s common for stars to obscure their looks, pop on a fake nose and fright wig, of course; it\u2019s less common for actors to wholly embrace the irredeemable and risk the audience\u2019s love. \u201cAnyone can look ugly, \u201d Mr. Pattinson said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019 t take much.\u201d
In \u201cGood Time, \u201d the ugliness he taps into goes beyond Connie\u2019s greasy hair and torrents of flop sweat, and seems to exude from his very pores. Mr. Pattinson, who conveys a warmth and openness in person, conceded that it could be a problem when audiences confuse actor and character. But that hasn\u2019 t happened to him, which is why he is, he said, \u201cpretty blas\u00e9 about it.\u201d If anything, he seemed happy at all the \u201crevolting parts\u201d he has coming up.
Looking further ahead, he would love to work with the German director Maren Ade, whose \u201cToni Erdmann\u201d played big at Cannes last year. During this year\u2019s festival, it was announced that Mr. Pattinson would star in \u201cThe Souvenir, \u201d an ambitious movie from the British director Joanna Hogg that Martin Scorsese will executive produce. Mr. Pattinson also hopes that this summer he can start on a project (\u201cHigh Life\u201d) that he and the French director Claire Denis \u2014 he counts her film \u201cWhite Material\u201d among his favorites \u2014 have been working on for three years. (\u201cThat, to me, that\u2019s kind of the biggest thing I\u2019 ve got. I literally still can\u2019 t really believe it.\u201d)
\u201cI think one of the best things, basically, about being a bit of a sellout, \u201d Mr. Pattinson said, is \u201cif you\u2019 ve done five movies in a series, you\u2019 ve had to accept some responsibility for playing the same character.\u201d He didn\u2019 t sound regretful, just matter-of-fact. Working on the \u201cTwilight\u201d movies, he said, was \u201can amazing luxury\u201d and it was \u201camazing luck, as well, to just have fallen into it with the group of people I worked with on it.\u201d They were kids in it together, kids who rebelled or tried to, and felt emboldened to act out. He even came close, he said, to being fired on the first movie, until his agents flew in to straighten him out. \u201cI didn\u2019 t have to kiss anybody\u2019s\u201d rear end \u201cthe entire time, \u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019 t think I did, anyway.\u201d
Mr. Pattinson seems entirely at peace with \u201cTwilight\u201d and has clearly found a way to harness its legacy, which includes going dark and making the kinds of art films that find love at Cannes. He says he always thinks he\u2019s terrible in every take. \u201cI can\u2019 t say that about anyone I work with, \u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019 ve never seen anyone give themselves such a hard time. I\u2019 m beating myself up afterward. And I think there\u2019s some weird perverted energy that comes out of when people criticize previous work or think you represent this certain thing; it gives you this energy.\u201d
Maybe that sounds disingenuous, but I believed him. He was on a roll, though, and soon added that he was \u201calmost scared of anyone saying anything I do is good.\u201d He then laughed, perhaps a touch self-consciously.<\/p>\n

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Sentiment rank: 0.6<\/div>\n

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