Demolition

In Fearless, Peter Weir's stunning 1993 study of psychological trauma, Jeff Bridges, in a career-best performance, wanders about in an emotional bubble as a result of miraculously surviving a plane crash. Jake Gyllenhaal goes through something similar in Demolition, Jean-Marc Vallée's sometimes uneven follow up to Wild.

Gyllenhaal is Davis, an investment banker married to Julia (Heather Lind), daughter to Davis's boss, Phil (Cooper). When Julia dies in a car accident Davis shuts down, goes emotionally numb. A packet of M&Ms frustratingly stuck in a vending machine inspires Davis to pen a series of letters of complaint to the vending company in which he coldly explains that he suspects he never loved her. The letters touch customer service employee Karen (Watts), mother of troubled teenager Chris (Lewis), and they two embark on a friendship.

Mirroring Davis's fractured state of mind, Demolition is a tad wobbly. It has a tendency to fall into subplots, snapping back into focus and then wandering about some more. It makes it difficult to get a handle on the inconsistent Davis and where his head is at. He admits to not loving Julia but he’s dogged by memories of intimacy (in super short flashbacks); he's obviously shaken to the core and we're left waiting for the dam to burst but there's a lot of faffing about getting there. The metaphors are clunky too – like what he wants to do to his life, he takes apart appliances and, later, demolishes his house – but then he flags same in his letters to Karen.

The framing device of the letters is forced and the way writer Bryan Sipe finds a way for Karen to enter the story – calling Davis late at night, observing him from the shadows in a carpark, telling him that getting involved with her is "dangerous" – is all needless cloak and dagger stuff that doesn't develop. When it branches out to include the troubles she's having with her son (a terrific turn from newcomer Lewis), it takes its eye off the ball.

But Gyllenhaal ties it all together; on a roll at the moment (Nightcrawler, Southpaw, Enemy), Gyllenhaal's solid turn sees one through the more wobbly bits. He's in good company with Watts and Cooper in fine form.