We've all seen this movie: A privileged and mediocre white man, who doesn't quite comprehend his privilege or his mediocrity, learns a big lesson about life. Usually from a hot younger woman. Maybe a very cute and tiny child. Often while staring into space while soft indie music plays.
"Demolition" isn't quite that movie, "quite" being the operative word. As hard as it tries to be something different, at its core it's still about a privileged and mediocre white man. Everything exists to teach him a lesson. Anyone who opposes him is a jerk. There's a pretty woman, and a kid. You get the picture.
Except, and I give "Demolition" credit for this, the film at least tries. That's something, right? While Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is indeed privileged, mediocre and mopey, at least he has a reason: His wife, Julia (Heather Lind), is killed in a short but explosive collision, while Davis is in the passenger seat and survives without a scratch. Now Davis isn't quite sure what to do, other than give his all to his stockbroker job supervised by his father-in-law, Phil (Chris Cooper), and fall asleep at night in his idyllic suburban house. Only when Davis starts writing angry-turned-heartfelt letters to a vending machine company, and starts taking apart machinery bit by bit, does he start to process his massive loss. In other words, he takes action rather than staring blankly into the abyss.
There is a pretty woman, but she's played by Naomi Watts, a gifted actress who's unfortunately aged out of Hollywood "babe" roles — as opposed to, say, Selena Gomez. Watts' character isn't a manic pixie dream girl. Quite the opposite: She has a cannabis habit and a dead-end job, as working-class as Davis is upper. She's a single mom, but her son (Judah Lewis) is sullen, rebellious and far from a standard plot moppet.
And yet, even with all of this effort, "Demolition" still falls short. It's entirely too lengthy. I can only watch Davis destroy valuable property, while acting like a complete jerk to his father-in-law, who commits the grievous error of wanting to establish a scholarship in his late daughter's name, for so long. It's clueless: Though the characters are somewhat more nuanced, they still exist only to teach Davis lessons. And because it's from the perspective of a privileged and mediocre white man — instead of his stodgy but grieving father-in-law, his blue-collar female friend, or her conflicted, vulnerable teenage son — it's tired. It's so very, very tired.
There's no question that "Demolition" means well. It wants us to know how hard it is trying not to be "that movie." But as mainstream Hollywood churns out more and more of these whitewashed films, doing one's best is no longer good enough.
https://youtu.be/3UnSXelOJo0&w=514