Robert Pattinsonfirst made a global-scale splash as the tragically-fated Cedric Diggory inHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, before utterly dominating the cultural conversation in theTwilightfranchise as broodingly romantic vampire Edward Cullen. This role made Pattinson a superstar, regular tabloid fodder, and the subject of lots of pop culture ridicule. For a man who’s objectively one of our biggest acting superstars,Pattinson’s choices reveal a purposeful lack of ego. He’ll take a leading role, sure, but he’s just as comfortable as a committed, supporting character actor — and if he looks foolish, idiotic, or out of his depth, all the better.
SinceTwilight,Pattinson has stretched himself in a series of eclectic and eccentric filmswith a series of eclectic and eccentric directors. With the exceptions of the recentTenetandThe Batman, he’s avoided big-budget blockbuster fare, preferring a slate of independent passion projects that seem designed to circumvent any kind of mass appeal. Some actors might rewrite scripts to make them look better; Pattinson seems determined to do the opposite. With rumors of his upcoming film withParasitedirectorBong Joon-ho,Mickey 17, premiering at this year’s Cannes, Pattinson is gearing up to head back to his indie sensibilities after taking a superhero detour. These performances reflect one of the most interesting and exciting actors working today.
15The King
The Kingisan exemplary case in point as to how dynamic and watchable Pattinson is as a performer. The Netflix drama, starringTimothée Chalametas a young king in a retelling ofWilliam Shakespeare’s various historical plays regarding King Henry, largely plods through its standard “kings and knights, swords and power grabs” plottings without much else to say about the genre. If you’re into that kind of thing communicated as plainly as possible, you’ll be decently along for the ride; if you, like me, tend to find that kind of thing trite without anything new to say, you’ll be checking your clock throughout.
And then, Pattinson shows up. And my attention wasrapidly piqued. Whereas everyone else in the picture gives a standard “grumbling, impassioned English accent” kind of performance, Pattinson plays Louis, The Dauphin of France with unbridled, eccentric, effete, and egoless glee. This man is a true idiot who believes, deep in his soul, that he is wonderful, and Pattinson is wise enough as a performer to believe in his power, but canny enough to letussee just how laughably idiotic he is. His shoulders hunched, his hands making constrained gestures, his voice pitched forward and up — Pattinson’s Dauphin folds in on itself 19 times over, resulting in an unusually sharpened dullard. He enters the film with an all-time line reading (it has to do with balls, and that’s all I’ll say) and he exits the film with an all-time piece of physical comedy (it has to do with mud, and that’s all I’ll say), and every single other frame of the film lags. That’s the power of Pattinson.
Watch on Netflix
14The Devil All the Time
In some ways a spiritual sibling toThe King,The Devil All the Timealso plods through its genre trappings without any sense of nuance or interest beyond the surface. If you want to watch “a bunch of men behaving terribly with Southern accents,” by God,The Devil All the Timeis going to give you that over and over and over again, to the point of self-parody, with only the shallowest of psychological examinations of why humans might engage in such deviant behavior.
And then, once again, Pattinson shows up. And his gift to cut through clutter is noticed, appreciated, and magnified. As Reverend Preston Teagardin, Pattinson is maybe the third “evil Southern preacher” we see show up in the film (seriously), but he’s the only one whom I have an understanding of beyond the blunt text. No matter what superficial rattlings of “power” sociopathic sinners may present, their insides are rotting, and that rot can’t help but poke its way through the skin in curious ways. Pattinson seems to be the only performer who understands this, contorting his body in discomfiting angles, once again placing his voice in a higher-pitched, more effete register, trying desperately to prove that he deserves power despite, like, every single physical facet about him, and largely succeeding.Even as his character engages in the film’s requisite terrible behaviors, you can’t stop watching him— and it’s largely because you feel like you actually understand him.
The Devil All The Time
Sinister characters converge around a young man devoted to protecting those he loves in a postwar backwoods town teeming with corruption and brutality.
The third, and most successful, example of “Pattinson fighting against the limitations of the film” isLife, a biographical drama about the curious friendship that develops between photographerDennis Stock(Pattinson) and burgeoning iconJames Dean(Dane DeHaan, yikes). Pattinson, in a theme we’ll see in many of his best performances, plays Stock (and, arguably, the entire art of photography) as an inherently uncomfortable observer outside the margins of how “regular humans” behave, using the lens as both invasive weapon and agency-seeking shield. In an impressive, fast-talking New York accent (watching him andJoel Edgertontrade barbs in this accent is a sincere pleasure) that’s constantly choked on its own lack of communicative efficiency,Pattinson does his best to get after his character’s wants, while understanding that some barriers, despite the illusion of visibility, will remain opaque.
Now, obviously, this is Pattinson’s story, right? We’re centered on him, James Dean is his catalyzing agent, and he learns something about himself, right? Wrong. DirectorAnton Corbijnand screenwriterLuke Daviesmake the unfortunate mistake of splitting the central focus between him and DeHaan as Dean.The story is just as much about Dean’s struggles as Stock’s, all to its detriment. As Davies writes him, Dean is inherently a passive character, a man who reacts to chaos around him with a sense of bemused detachment. Why would I want to watch this so much? Isn’t Stock, who has clear and active wants at every corner, the more obvious protagonist? The film doesn’t seem to know this, and every time Pattinson leaves the frame, so to does its effectiveness.
Watch on Freevee
12The Childhood of a Leader
The Childhood of a Leader, the directorial debut of fellow “odd leading man"Brady Corbet, isa stirring example of how egoless Pattinson is as a performer, how eager he is to give himself up wholly to his filmmaker’s vision. As Charles Marker, a friend (or more?) to the mother (Bérénice Bejo) of a dictator in the making (Tom Sweet), Pattinson is often literally in the periphery of the film. Corbet and his DPLol Crawleyhave a highly specific, immaculate visual language for the film, which often results in long takes framed singularly on one character, whether they’re talking or not. As such, Pattinson is more often than not in two or three-shots, pushed into the side, shrouded in darkness even as he commands a room with his casual friendliness or billiards trick shots. But because Pattinson is so eager to be an ensemble player, so eager to give his director whatever they need, his performance seeps over you effortlessly, allowing you to notice the smallest tics and tells as part of the film’s appealing overall tapestry (especially a scene where we walk in on Pattinson and Bejo having a fraught conversation, Pattinson allowing us to seejust a touchof fear in being caught).
Watch on Tubi
11The Haunted Airman
BeforeTwilight, Pattinson was a working actor in England, occasionally booking roles in prestige British television made-for-TV movies. One of these films, originally airing on BBC Four in 2006, isThe Haunted Airman, which plays a little likeShutter Islandwith a particularly English sense of repression and reckoning. Airing when Pattinson was only 20 years old, the young thespian sidesteps his youthful allure with an aggressively patient performance. His haunted airman is in a strange, spooky military hospital as a result, feels like a melancholy ghost from frame one, unwilling and unwanting to jump into his traumas nor the eerie things that keep happening to him, seemingly content to let the world drift by him (comparing this toLeonardo DiCaprio’s beyond-activeShutter Islandprotagonist is quite the exercise).
And I know what you’re saying. “Didn’t you criticizeLifefor centering too much on an inactive protagonist?” Here’s where Pattinson’s patience pays off, resulting in an explosive conclusion to an arc I wasn’t aware Pattinson was building until it happened. More and more horrors pile up upon his head, some of which are supernatural, some of which are human-made (i.e. his sexually deviant relationship with a woman he lovingly calls his Aunt). And when Pattinson begins to turn the screws and give in to these woes, it results in explosive gothic horror tragedy bolstered by Pattinson’s previous patience — all under 70 minutes!It’s not hard to watchThe Haunted Airmanand immediately want to put Pattinson in as many films as possible; it remains a uniquely, carefully crafted breakout role.
The Haunted Airmanis not available on streaming.
1010. Tenet
Despite its purposefully knotted time trickery and intentionally caked-on seriousness,Tenetis, at its big ol’ heart, a very sweet and sincere movie. If you need more proof of this, don’t look at any of the backward action sequences, references to the Sator Square, or cockney grumblings of a “temporal pincer.” Look at Robert Pattinson.
WhileJohn David Washingtonis constantly hunched forward, on the attack, and highly physical,Pattinson’s sidekick character is much more laconic, easy-going, and effortless even in his most aggressive action sequences. His upper-class English dialect lilts over the deep-voiced gravel of the rest of the piece, earning our attention without asking for it. Pattinson is, simply, having fun making this movie with his friends — and that idea isn’t just me being cheeky. “Friendship” is a huge arc of the film, and Pattinson is our key conduit to this idea. He’s introduced getting Washington’s drink order exactly correct, and he leaves making Washington cry with the power of their simple brotherly love, no matter how out of order it was told. Pattinson’s work here is sappy, silly, simple, and the secret point ofChristopher Nolan’s piece of divisive blockbuster tomfoolery.
Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
Rent on Amazon
99. Water for Elephants
In a true and just world,Water for Elephantswould’ve been the vehicle that established Pattinson as a bankable romantic lead, instead of the vehicle that came as a result of it.Water for Elephantsis an unabashedly old-fashioned, heartstring-tugging, handsome-as-hell romance. Every single machination ofRichard LaGraveneseis designed to play its audience like a damn fiddle, to put Pattinson’s character on a pedestal of emotional objectification. And I was simply delighted to be played every step of the way.
In the 1930s, Pattinson plays Jacob Jankowski, a Polish-American veterinarian student (swoon) who can no longer afford college because his parents die in an accident (double swoon), so he joins a traveling circus to take care of its animals in a new-fashioned, empathetic way (quadruple swoon). This circus is run by an abusiveChristoph Waltz(boo!), who’s married to its star, the heavenlyReese Witherspoon(yay!), and if you think Pattinson and Witherspoon are gonna fall in love and destroy Waltz with the power of said love while being nice to animals along the way, congratulations, you’ve seen a movie before!
Despite my snark, Ilovedthis damn picture, falling for its “completely what it says it’s gonna be” charms. And it proves that Pattinson’s commitment to roles doesn’t just fall under bizarro, purposefully inaccessible indie fare. He plays this old-fashioned romantic lead straight as an arrow, soaking up sympathy and admiration without an ounce of irony or winking. When he stares at Witherspoon with love, an elephant with mercy, or Waltz with pent-up rage, I’m there with him every step of the way. Unlike the controlling manipulations of, say, a sparkly vampire who likes stalking a random woman and threatening to eat her,Water for Elephantsis a down-the-middle romantic Pattinson performance I can get behind and then some.
Water for Elephants
Set in the 1930s, a former veterinary student takes a job in a travelling circus and falls in love with the ringmaster’s wife.
Inside ‘The Batman: Part II’: Everything We Know About Robert Pattinson’s Return To Gotham
Which member of the Caped Crusader’s rogues gallery will he be tangling with this time?
8Cosmopolis
Cosmopoliscomes from the imagination of that cerebral, flesh-obsessed directorDavid Cronenberg, and in Pattinson, he finds a perfect vessel for hiscyberpunk-leaning, detachedly misanthropic, casually surreal waking nightmares. Pattinson plays Eric Parker, just the worst tech-bro you can imagine, who tries to take a stretch limo across New York to get a haircut, and inadvertently plows his way through episodes of social unrest, anti-capitalist revolution, and personal revenge. Throughout this all (the majority of which does indeed take place in his insulated limo, shot with some iffy-potentially-on-purpose green screen),Pattinson evokes the chilling clinical observations of a college-educated tech geniuswho knows how much we’re all doomed and has lost all sense of empathy as a result; and a kind of microscopic curiosity as to how his fellow specimens will react to unusual stimuli. If Patrick Bateman tried to put on a Mark Zuckerberg suit, you might have something like Pattinson’s performance.
And yet, despite the inherent inhumanity of the picture,Pattinson doesn’t feel undercooked or out of his element, or even apathetic in his depiction of apathy (charges I would unfortunately level at his second Cronenberg collaboration,Maps to the Stars). Technically, and even emotionally, the performance is beyond impressive. He makes Cronenberg’s verbose, inhuman, pretentious poetry (lifted often verbatim from novelistDon DeLillo’s source material) sing exactly the way it needs to sing, affecting a gruff New York accent to give it just a hint of bite beyond its affectless textual implications, filling every scene with a sense of palpable dread. You never know what Eric Parker is thinking or going to do next — even as you can tell just how much thought Pattinson has put into being so thoughtless.
Cosmopolis
Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager’s day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart.
Watch on Amazon Prime
7The Rover
In the relentlessly single-mindedThe Rover, a minimalist dystopian western-thriller that plays like — and I mean this as a sincere compliment —Mad MaxmeetsDude Where’s My Car?, Pattinson shows up to give us a welcome wrinkle, showing again how adept he is at giving a film, and a scene partner, the foil they need to shine hard.
Guy Pearce, our titular rover, is sparse with word, quick with a gun, focused in desire (“Have you seen a car?” in an Australian accent will rattle through my brain for the rest of my life), and seemingly missing remorse. Thus, Pattinson gives us the inverse, a Southerner who’s prone to jabbering, wracked with guilt and remorse at nearly every turn, unsure exactly of what he wants, and simply miserable with a gun in his hand. Pattinson makes his way into Pearce’s plot by virtue of beingScoot McNairy’s brother, a man who stole Pearce’s car (“cah”) before leaving Pattinson for dead;this precarious relationship just might make Pattinson the stealth protagonist of the picture.We watch him change from a man of naïve simplicity to a man hardened by burden, by the ruthless truth at how little the world cares. And Pattinson continues to care little about how the world views him, playing this role with viscerally upsetting prosthetic teeth, a borderline incomprehensible accent, and an uncritical simplicity in intelligence. He is, of course, magnetic, giving the film its heart and semi-conscience it so desperately needs.
10 years after a global economic collapse, a hardened loner pursues the men who stole his only possession, his car. Along the way, he captures one of the thieves' brother, and the duo form an uneasy bond during the dangerous journey.
Robert Pattinson’s physicalizations and love of playing low-status-who-thinks-they’re-high-status often yield performances that leave me cackling in laughter, giving meJim Carreyenergy. Nowhere is that more apparent thanDamsel, an achingly, ruthlessly, aggressively silly and sharp comedy-western fromThe Zellner Brothersthat plays — and I mean this as a sincere compliment — likeThere’s Something About Maryin the Old West.
From the very first shot of Pattinson, where he square dances withMia Wasikowskawhile looking straight at the camera with a dead-eyed attempt at positive enthusiasm, I couldn’t stop laughing at him. His Samuel Alabaster, as ineffectual an Old West cowboy as his name embodies, is so, so stupid, but continues to act with such single-minded purpose and, importantly, self-confidence in his lack of confidence. He tells tons of more traditionally tough, masculine Old West cowboys about his journey to reunite with and propose to his love Penelope (Wasikowska); when they make fun of him (because, sincerely, there’s nothing else you can reasonably do with Pattinson’s character), he tends to join them or speak plainly about why he’s the “medium-sized” Adam’s apple he knows himself to be. His “dog with blinders” energy of finding his love, no matter what it takes, makes the character relentlessly endearing, even as Pattinson obviously couldn’t be bothered to make himselfseemendearing.
And then, about halfway through the film,Damseldoes something very interesting to Pattinson. I won’t spoil it here, but I’ll say it changes what we’ve seen before, the focus of the film after, and recontextualizes the film’s title itself. It’s a genius move on the Zellners, even as it inherently shifts the focus away from Pattinson toward a broader point in general, revealingPattinson’s appearance as merely a tool in their satirical purview. Frankly, that just gives me more awe regarding Pattinson’s work, and his willingness as a performer to do whatever it takes to communicate his director’s intentions.
