Nightcrawler

A film that takes place at night in Los Angeles. Lou steals. He sells what he takes and asks everyone he meets for a job; nobody gives him one. One night he sees a crash on a motorway. A cameraman is working at the roadside; he films the scene and sells it to a television station. Lou buys a camera and a scanner. From there the film is a rise. He listens to the police radio, reaches the scenes before the police, and sells his footage to a morning news channel. Nina, the news director, is losing ratings. She describes what she wants outright: white victims in wealthy neighbourhoods. Lou grows the business. He takes on an assistant, buys a fast car, and then starts interfering with the scenes. What the narrative is interested in is not news but a void: Lou has no guilt; he explains everything he does in the language of business, and the film draws him not as a monster but as an entrepreneur. The negotiation scene between him and Nina is the most uncomfortable thing in the film and is entirely calm. Los Angeles is deliberately empty. The streets are deserted, the light is yellow, and the city is shot like hunting ground. Jake Gyllenhaal lost considerable weight for the part and kept the character's stare fixed. The screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award for original screenplay. Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed and Bill Paxton are in the cast. Dan Gilroy wrote and directed; it was his first film. Who it is for: anyone who likes cold, dark character studies. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a lesson; the film punishes nobody and the last scene says so plainly.