Primetime

Moby Dick is considered one of the great epics where a single concrete image – that of a whale – carries an almost limitless amount of symbolic weight, opening to larger truths about America. Like the novel’s Captain Ahab, Primetime‘s Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) is on the relentless hunt for a whale, one that will eclipse the previous guests on his show and make his program “bigger than Lost“. Hansen is the host of Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator, a reality series designed to entrap men seeking encounters with underage boys and girls. Fresh-faced actors (Phoebe Bridgers in an impressive debut) pose as minors to lure in the targets, but when Broadway hopeful Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo) agrees to play a decoy, he has no idea what he signed up for.

Anyone who has seen David Osit’s documentary from last year will instantly recognise the scenes that are re-created in Primetime, but director Lance Oppenheim fills in what the real-life footage leaves unseen. Rehearsal is a routine part of television production, but the sinister way Hansen keeps repeating the chat logs he is about to read, like depraved mantras, exposes the perversity at the heart of the show. The unreliable protagonist vehemently denies being a performer, but it is unclear how much of the story of the selfless saviour he is selling he actually believes.

While the hidden-camera set-up on his format exposed suspected predators, Primetime‘s cinematography helps expose Hansen. He lurks behind half-open doors of his sting houses like a Peeping Tom. The heroic framing of his entrances to the scene is turned grotesque, while unnervingly tight close-ups are often engulfed in shadows, disrupting the familiarity of the television persona. Certain scenes feel as though they could have been lifted straight from a horror film, perhaps classifying it as one isn’t entirely misguided.

Robert Pattinson’s knack for voice acting is well established, and the film lives up to the trailer’s promise of an uncannily precise impersonation. His capturing of Chris Hansen’s tone and mannerisms is however merely the foundation of an all-round indelible turn. Meanwhile, Skyler Gisondo more than holds his own, bringing a disarming innocence to Dan. His ambition mirrors Hansen’s but his scruples do not. Gisondo (famously memed for his performance in Licorice Pizza) has built his reputation largely on lighter fare and Primetime manages to weaponise his comedic timing to devastating effect. His knockout performance is one that won’t soon be forgotten.

Oppenheim’s thriller taps into a similar vein as May December, uneasily probing the cost of other people’s pain into entertainment, using humour not to soften its blows but to make it harder to look away from. A deep dive into the dark heart of showbiz, Primetime understands what Moby Dick knew all along: the most dangerous thing about the hunt is what it reveals about the hunter.

Selina Sondermann

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