‘Primetime’ Review: Robert Pattinson Gets Lost in the Dark Side of Reality Television

Lance Oppenheim’s documentaries have always seemed to have one foot in fiction. Not necessarily because of their subject matter, but because of the highly stylized, precise and undeniably cinematic way they are shot. That quality was already apparent in Some Kind of Heaven and Spermworld, but became even more pronounced in You Can See Everything, which ventured further into the increasingly blurred territory between genres, or perhaps between different modes of storytelling. Released just one day before that much-discussed documentary he co-directed with Nathan Fielder about Elizabeth Holmes, Primetime dives headfirst into that murky territory, exploring the uneasy relationship between documentary and fiction, and, more specifically, the ways in which images can be manipulated.

Shot in what appears to be extremely grainy 16mm and mixed with low-quality video footage designed to replicate the look of the television show at its center, Primetime takes as its subject a notorious and controversial American TV program that aired between 2004 and 2007: To Catch a Predator. The show, which was also the subject of David Osit’s excellent documentary Predators last year, had a rather unusual premise. Originally conceived as a segment on the news magazine Dateline NBC, it eventually became a show of its own, dedicated to catching child predators in the act.

The concept worked like this: the production team would scour internet chat rooms and forums, posing as underage boys or girls to lure adult men seeking sex with minors. They would arrange to meet them at a supposedly private home, where an actor or actress with a convincingly teenage appearance (all were adults, though they looked much younger) would be waiting. The entire encounter would be filmed, and as soon as the visitor made some kind of sexual advance, the show’s host would walk into the room (or rather, the set) and inform him that he was being recorded for television. He was free to leave if he wanted, although the police were waiting outside. Whatever his reaction, he would be arrested moments later, his face already exposed to a national television audience.

Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, the journalist who hosted the show and served as its self-appointed moral compass, confronting the perpetrators on camera and publicly denouncing their behavior. Hansen is a man who probably imagined a more conventional career for himself, but has gradually come to accept that this is where he belongs: abandoning the traditional journalistic principles he once embraced in favor of becoming the frontman of a popular television spectacle. To Catch a Predator was such a ratings hit that NBC eventually moved it into primetime, where it went head-to-head with ABC’s Lost, then the highest-rated show on television.

Rather than tell the story of the program and its host in conventional biographical or journalistic terms, Oppenheim prefers to immerse us in the atmosphere he imagines surrounded its production. What emerges is a dark, slightly bizarre world in which Hansen, his producer (Merritt Wever), the technical crew, the man responsible for contacting potential predators online (Matthew Maher) and, most importantly, the actors who have to lend their faces, voices and bodies to the show’s climactic encounters, all go about their business putting together one episode after another. There are two such actors. Del (Phoebe Bridgers), a veteran of the show who can convincingly play both boys and girls, and Dan (Skyler Gisondo), a newcomer who essentially serves as our entry point into this strange operation, allowing us to discover how everything works alongside him.

Formally, Oppenheim adopts an approach similar to the one he and Fielder used in You Can See Everything: extreme close-ups, an almost constant musical score reminiscent of 1950s film noir, highly expressive cinematography, shifting image formats and a fragmented editing style that rarely allows scenes to unfold in any traditional sense. Primetime feels constructed out of a series of small vignettes, stolen moments from the lives of Hansen and his collaborators as they become increasingly immersed in their mission to «catch predators.»

The film explores the dangerous territory occupied by the show itself. Its supposedly noble mission (putting child predators behind bars) was increasingly compromised by the methods used to catch them and, above all, by the commercialization of the entire enterprise. The impression is that the production team cares more about ratings than justice, and that there is very little they won’t do to win their time slot. The main casualty of this tension is Hansen himself, whom Pattinson portrays as an enigmatic, slippery and decidedly odd character. He is too self-absorbed to be the hero he imagines himself to be, and too caught up in his own personal troubles (he has a mistress and is dealing with unwanted attention from the tabloid press) to show much genuine interest in the cause his program claims to defend. Once you’re caught up in the television business, Primetime seems to suggest, truth, justice and everything else become largely irrelevant. Television is all that matters.

Gisondo’s character, nicknamed «Decoy Dan,» has the most conventional narrative arc of the bunch. He is the innocent young man hired for his boyish looks, initially unaware of what he is getting himself into. But as he goes through the various experiences Hansen and the show put him through, he becomes increasingly absorbed, perhaps too absorbed, in the roles he is asked to play. Wever is very good as the producer who constantly wonders whether she should keep doing this job (she has offers from other shows), while Maher plays a man who seems to enjoy his role as an online minor a little too much for comfort.

But the real center of the film is Pattinson, an actor who seems to use every role and every project he chooses as an opportunity to explore some strange, unsettling corner of his craft. Fully aware of his star power, he has used his fame not only to support independent filmmaking but also to experiment with different acting styles and unconventional approaches to character. The results aren’t always successful, but his willingness to take risks is certainly worth appreciating. His Chris Hansen is quite different from the real-life figure we see in Predators. Oppenheim and Pattinson turn him into a man seduced by fame and power, someone far more concerned with his own reflection than with the supposedly heroic mission he has taken on.

Written by Ajon Singh, Primetime doesn’t dig particularly deep into the ethical ambiguities raised by a program like this. That’s what the documentary is there for, after all. There is a case among the many encounters depicted here that makes it clear that the show’s methods of catching sexual predators may not be as foolproof as they seem, and that its actions can have unforeseen consequences. But the film largely takes for granted that the people making the show are beyond such questions of ethics and morality. What matters to Hansen is the ratings, beating Lost, looking down on the serious journalists at the network and producing a television event that will make an impact. That hunger for power and visibility eventually consumes everyone involved. Reality, meanwhile, is little more than an afterthought.