Director Lance Oppenheim deploys a terrific ensemble, including Pattinson, Merrit Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Alex Winter and Phoebe Bridgers in an edgy, exploratory thesis on the dark ambitions and darker motivations of "To Catch a Predator"'s Chris Hansen.
Plus IconJessica Kiang
See All
Courtesy of A24, Venice Film Festival “Can you get tighter in on him?” Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) demands of the technician editing his latest “To Catch a Predator” segment. He has noticed that when his would-be pedophile prey finally spot him, stepping out of an upstairs bedroom or strolling through the kitchen door of the house designed to ensnare evildoers like them, their nostrils tend to flare. Hansen wants that quiver to read onscreen. He thinks people will like to see it. Perhaps in the very same spirit of ghoulish voyeurism, director Lance Oppenheim has designed “Primetime” as a nightmarishly claustrophobic 4:3 portrait of Hansen as a horror villain, macro-zoomed-in as if, past the point of image degradation, approaching the point at which the portrait becomes all but unrecognisable as a human being, we might be able to peer through the sickly sheen of his skin, dive in through one of his pores and see his very soul. Or the place where his soul once, presumably, lived.
Related Stories
