Primetime

Why don’t you have a seat?

An empty kitchen. A plate of fresh cookies on the counter. Someone tells you they’re still warm, then walks out and leaves you alone with them. You don’t need to have seen a single viral clip to sense that something here isn’t right. Then comes the line: “Why don’t you have a seat?”

That’s where Primetime sits you down, and it doesn’t let you up for 110 minutes. Its endless close-ups squeeze the air out of the room and turn you into one of the millions watching in 2006: glued to the couch, eyes nailed to the TV. It’s the pull of those satisfying-but-disturbing videos. You keep watching, and you’re not sure you should be.
Robert Pattinson becomes the spectacular monster we’ve been waiting for. His Chris Hansen is wildly exaggerated, nervy, unsteady, at times grotesque. You can hate him, but you can’t look away.

See it in a packed theater, not alone on your couch. Primetime is a game of monsters. Some simply won’t care for the game, and that’s fair. Those who can face their own in the mirror will love it. But a few will walk out the moment they feel the camera slowly turning toward the monster inside them.