Jake Gyllenhaal delivers one of his best performances as Lou Bloom, a news stringer who will do anything it takes to capture raw and graphic footage in the riveting thriller Nightcrawler.
Bloom, along with a police scanner and an in-over-his-head assistant (Riz Ahmed) scour the Los Angeles streets waiting to capture the latest crime or car accident that occur during the dead of night. Rene Russo is Nina Romina, a desperate news director who loves Bloom’s graphic footage and isn’t afraid of crossing the line to garner great ratings.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Although Lou Bloom is an ambitious, diligent go-getter, some of his actions lead to drastic consequences. Though some viewers may characterize Bloom as sociopathic, Gyllenhaal also explains how this “nightcrawler” is a product of our media frenzied environment:
“We’re the ones who are responsible for giving them the opportunity for people to pay for the stuff that they’re getting. We are the people who create Lou Bloom. We’ve created him. He’s a creation of our culture. That’s how I feel about news now.”
The project also enabled Gyllenhaal to collaborate with his godfather Robert Elswit, a celebrated cinematographer who’s lensed There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Michael Clayton. Elswit paints Los Angeles in a predatory light in Nightcrawler, giving us a City of Angels that’s far from angelic and glamorous.
One of the several elements behind Gyllenhaal’s inspired work lies in the physicality he approached with the role. To achieve Lou Bloom’s hungry and lean look, the actor consistently ran throughout Griffith Park. Click on the media bar to hear the actor talk about losing weight for the role:
Nightcrawler, directed and penned by Dan Gilroy, opens October 31.
