Jake Gyllenhaal’s Leo Bloom in Nightcrawler is as creepy as the movie’s title suggests. A bug-eyed loner who preys on the misfortunes of others, Bloom’s very language appropriates television-speak with information garnered on the Internet to make him reptilian. Negotiating his way through interactions, he acquires a camera and means to follow disasters, and finds a career as a videographer filming beyond the scope of decency: a man with gaping wounds after a car crash, a family shot in their mansion, their plush white carpets soaked in blood. Racing around in a beautifully shot L.A. in a red car, he doesn’t just follow crime scenes, he creates them.
At this week’s premiere at Stone Rose Lounge, Jake Gyllenhaal said he just followed Dan Gilroy’s script and direction keeping his eyes fixed that way. Checking to gauge the blink factor, one could see he had to force his eyes to spook so effectively. Add to that, Donald Mowat’s work on makeup, keeping the face a pallid yellow, the eyes red-rimmed. What a perfect movie to open for Halloween!
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