Quest-en-Scène: Primetime Is So Much More Than a Biopic
Before my screening of Primetime, there was a pre-roll ad by Chris Hansen himself, the subject of the film. In the ad, he emphasized how children are still in danger from sexual predators and his dedication to protecting them, then promoted his streaming service TruBlue in the same breath. I knew this ad was coming. There had been news stories in the lead up to the film’s release about Hansen buying ad space before every theatrical screening of the film, but it was still surreal to witness. This perfectly set the tone for the film and the intense cognitive dissonance it portrays.
Primetime is based on the 2007 Esquire article “Tonight On Dateline This Man Will Die.” The article tells the story of Bill Conradt, a man who committed suicide during a sting operation on To Catch A Predator. The film is a fictionalized retelling of the events leading up to this event, focused on the psychology of Chris Hansen and several other key figures involved in the show. The film is being described as a biopic by many news outlets, but I think this is an inaccurate description. The film isn’t interested in retelling the story of Hansen’s life or exploring the full history of To Catch A Predator; it instead uses Hansen and his show as a vehicle for a psychological thriller about the conflict between morality and the innate spectacle of television and the entertainment industry. It is a dense, thematically-rich film and significantly more interesting than any traditional biopic I’ve ever seen.
The thing that immediately stood out to me about Primetime was its visual style. It was filmed using 16 mm film, a lower-quality, more economical gauge of film traditionally used for home movies and documentaries. This choice, in combination with the vibrant, high contrast color grading, gives the film a hazy, almost dreamlike quality. The filmmakers are doing everything in their power to defy the slick, realistic stylings of modern digital film in order to make something purposefully artificial. These visual choices are simultaneously beautiful and thematically resonant with the film’s subject matter, making it look unlike any film I’ve seen in recent memory.
One of the most highly discussed elements of Primetime is Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Chris Hansen, and for good reason. Pattinson is an incredibly versatile actor who has had his fair share of excellent performances over the years, but this is definitely one of his best. He perfectly disappears into the role, managing to capture many different conflicting sides of Hansen. What I find most impressive about the performance is his ability to balance the heightened comedy of Hansen’s onscreen persona with the genuinely terrifying manipulation and sleaziness he exhibits behind the scenes. That being said, I don’t think the film did as good of a job at interrogating Hansen’s psychology as it could have. From the first moments of the film the viewer understands that he is morally questionable and emotionally unstable, and while he grows more paranoid and on-edge as the film goes on, it ultimately isn’t a particularly compelling emotional progression. This is mainly due to how the film chooses to show his paranoia through him being caught having an affair with a younger woman by the press. I can see a world where this is a compelling subplot, but in a film that is already so dense it feels like a cliché distraction and completely tertiary to the other events. In my opinion, the most interesting parts of Primetime are not Hansen himself, but how the characters in his orbit are impacted by him.
The standout of Primetime is Dan Plumb, played by Skylar Gisondo, a plucky aspiring actor hired as a decoy on To Catch A Predator: an adult actor pretending to be a child as a form of bait. The film does an incredible job of showing Plumb’s progression throughout the film, slowly being broken down by the intense emotional toll and cognitive dissonance of his position. Gisondo’s performance is one of the most harrowing things I’ve seen in a long time. There’s something haunting about how uncannily childlike he can be, as well as how instantly he can switch it off once the cameras stop rolling. In these scenes his body language is reminiscent of a battery powered toy that just got turned off, the breeziness of his demeanor immediately replaced with a dead-eyed, thousand yard stare.
The rest of the supporting cast is just as good. Merrit Weaver does an incredible job as Andie, the producer of To Catch A Predator who wants to improve the show’s ratings by any means necessary. She is more grounded than Hansen and initially acts as a voice of reason, but in the end shows herself to be just as morally bankrupt. Finally, I was shocked by how good Phoebe Bridgers was in the film. It’s not that I necessarily thought she’d do a poor job, but this was her acting debut and I’m usually a little hesitant whenever a famous musician tries to pivot to the big screen. However, I had nothing to worry about! Bridgers seamlessly fits into the film as a decoy alongside Gisondo. She has a world-weariness about her that excellently contrasts his youthful naivety. The scenes they share ended up being some of my favorites.
In the end, I think Primetime is excellent. While I don’t think it perfectly succeeds at everything it's trying to do, it is still a deeply compelling film and I really enjoyed it. It is unafraid to tackle its disturbing subject matter head on, and does so intelligently. It was a difficult, upsetting watch, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it and have had a lot of interesting discussions with the friends I saw it with. Don’t listen to any of the online discourse, moral policing, or Chris Hansen internet tirades you may have seen this past week: go see it for yourself and form your own opinion.