Fans of the Gyllenhaal can expect another great performance, and the film overall is quite good despite reveling in one too many clichés. This is a much better movie than his other latest, Southpaw.
Gyllenhaal stars as Davis, a man struggling to cope with the death of his wife Julia (Heather Lind).
Davis works for his wife's father Phil (Cooper) at a high-end investment bank in New York City. He has a life most of us can only dream about, yet he feels almost completely dead inside. He claims that Julia's death and the subsequent - and quite literal - dismantling of his marriage is the first time he's "felt something" in years. At the hospital mere minutes after Julia dies, Davis buys a pack of peanut M&Ms from a vending machine. The one and only thing he wants for himself in the event of his wife's death are these M&Ms, and they get stuck in the machine. He writes a series of letters to the vending company which come across as confessional diary entries more than official complaints. Davis's letters catch the attention of customer service rep Karen (Watts), and the two form an unlikely relationship. Davis befriends Karen's young son Chris (Judah Lewis) who is going through an identity crisis of his own. The three serve as positive influences on each others' lives in ways none of them expect, and they help pull each other out of their respective ruts.
Demolition is in keeping with Vallee's recent work in that, like Wild and DBC, these are stories centered around distraught protagonists who find catharsis in unique ways - be it dismantling one's multi-million-dollar home by hand, hiking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, or selling drugs to AIDS patients.
At times it feels as though Demolition can't quite balance the mix of sweet and sour in Davis's life, but I think it works because the cast is just too good. All across the board, we feel for these characters precisely how we're meant to. Is it corny that Davis buys a backhoe off of eBay and has it delivered directly to his front door so that he can tear down his own house? If it was any other story or any other character, absolutely. But these grand, goofy gestures are so in tune with Davis's character that the hokey stuff is easy to accept. Bryan Sipe delivers a fine original script which this reviewer was shocked to find was not based on previously published material. It feels like an adaptation of a New York Times bestseller. Whichever elements are pastiched from other films/stories seem to fit Gyllenhaal and Vallee just fine.
B+
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