Unpopular Opinion: 'Primetime' Is Profoundly Boring

This is far from the consensus — Robert Pattinson’s Primetime rates 87 percent with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 80 percent with audiences — but I am absolutely baffled by its high marks. Thematically, it’s interesting, at least in the way it intends to explore the line between journalism and spectacle, but director Lance Oppenheim (who also co-directs Nathan Fielder’s forthcoming Elizabeth Holmes doc) erases that line completely. It’s all spectacle, and Pattinson’s performance is honestly as nonsensical as it is unnerving.

Indeed, if Pattinson’s intention was to present Chris Hansen as a soulless vampire (and it probably was), well, the performance is effective. But the film is narratively inert — a $15 million arthouse exercise designed to make people feel good about themselves for watching it, even if they didn’t find it particularly compelling or entertaining. And it is absolutely not entertaining. It’s Todd Solondz tackling tabloid journalism, and I understand that’s supposed to be the appeal, but good god: Rarely have I watched a film with so little humanity.

Again, that’s the point. Good job, everyone! You made a film with no heroes, only ick. I know I’m supposed to applaud that. I know I’m only illustrating the film’s effectiveness. But my god, the whole thing was insufferable to sit through. It felt like one of those minor Nic Cage films where he’s restrained, and no one wants to see Nic Cage restrained — he should be contractually obligated to lose his s*** at least once per film. Likewise, I kept hoping Pattinson would come a little unglued, but instead we get a version of Chris Hansen engineered to make the audience sit in their discomfort.

It worked! It worked! I sat in my discomfort for two hours, and I left Primetime with no new insights into the journalism industry, only a feeling of mild nausea. Again, that is the point of Primetime. It did its job, and it did its job well. I don’t care. I still hated it. I felt like an apple waiting to be spoiled by the rotten one next to it, my soul slowly enveloped by a bacterial infection, watching awful people document other awful people. And the less respect Chris Hansen received for his bottom-dwelling work, the lower he sank, as though respect were waiting for him beneath a pile of maggots.

In other words: I’ve basically talked myself into respecting the film, even if I came away from it as revolted as I was bored. But, to both its credit and its detriment, there is not a single humane moment in the entirety of Primetime, which left me with the vague feeling that Lance Oppenheim and Robert Pattinson were no better in documenting Chris Hanson was in documenting predators. It’s dead turtles all the way down.