There is something quietly ironic about watching a film that interrogates the nature of television at the Venice Film Festival, a place where the act of looking has become an art form in itself.

Cameras line the red carpet, photographers chase fleeting expressions, audiences gather in the hope of witnessing something unforgettable, and everyone, in one way or another, is performing.

It feels entirely fitting, then, that Primetime, Lance Oppenheim’s first narrative feature, should arrive here asking not simply what we watch, but why we watch it at all.

Starring Robert Pattinson as television presenter Chris Hansen, the film revisits the world surrounding To Catch a Predator, the controversial NBC series that transformed undercover investigations into one of America’s most talked-about television events.

Yet Oppenheim has little interest in reconstructing history with forensic precision. Instead, he explores the blurred space where journalism becomes spectacle, where public service collides with ratings, and where the audience’s appetite for justice is never entirely separate from its appetite for entertainment.

Pattinson has built much of his career on refusing the obvious choice, and Primetime may be among his most restrained and quietly unsettling performances to date. Rather than relying on overt mimicry, he captures Hansen through subtle shifts in posture, carefully measured speech and the peculiar confidence of someone who understands that every silence, every glance and every pause is part of a performance.

Pattinson immersed himself in Hansen’s interviews and broadcasts, paying particular attention to his distinctive cadence, and the dedication shows in a portrayal that never slips into caricature. Instead, he allows the contradictions to breathe. His Hansen is convincing without ever asking to be admired, driven by an evident belief in the importance of his work while remaining inseparable from the machinery that transforms real human suffering into compelling television.

It is this tension that gives the performance its extraordinary pull. We are watching Robert Pattinson inhabit a man who spent years presenting himself to millions of viewers, and the film constantly reminds us that none of these identities can be entirely separated from the cameras recording them.

Oppenheim approaches the material with the eye of a documentarian but the instincts of a storyteller fascinated by moral ambiguity.

During the film’s Venice press appearances, he described Hansen as a uniquely complex public figure, someone who existed simultaneously as journalist, television personality and cultural icon, and Primetime embraces all of those versions without attempting to simplify them.

Oppenheim has spoken about his fascination with the way television manufactures narratives that feel spontaneous while being meticulously constructed, and that fascination shapes every frame of the film. Ordinary suburban homes become theatrical spaces where hidden cameras wait behind walls, conversations unfold according to invisible scripts and the promise of revelation hangs over every encounter.

The unsettling power of Primetime comes not from what takes place inside those rooms but from the awareness that every emotional moment has already been designed for an audience sitting safely at home.

That audience, in many ways, becomes the film’s true subject. It would be easy to watch Primetime as a story about media ethics or about one controversial television programme, but Oppenheim persistently redirects our attention towards ourselves. Why were millions of viewers so captivated by these confrontations? Where does the satisfaction of seeing justice served end and the thrill of public humiliation begin?

Those questions resonate even more strongly today than they did in the early years of reality television.

The world depicted in Primetime belongs to an era when network television still possessed the power to unite vast audiences around a single broadcast, yet the instincts it exposes feel startlingly contemporary. The desire to witness private lives unravel in public has not disappeared; it has merely migrated to different platforms, multiplied across social media feeds and become part of the rhythm of everyday life. The screens have changed, but the gaze remains remarkably familiar.

The supporting cast contributes to that atmosphere of carefully orchestrated unease, with Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and Bokeem Woodbine grounding the film in a world that feels simultaneously authentic and strangely heightened.

Phoebe Bridgers, making her feature acting debut, brings an understated vulnerability to her role, and her presence carries an unexpected resonance. An artist celebrated for the intimacy of her songwriting now finds herself inhabiting a story about the commercialisation of intimacy itself. Pattinson spoke warmly in Venice about her instinctive approach to performance and willingness to improvise, qualities that introduce flashes of spontaneity into a film otherwise fascinated by control and choreography.

By the time the lights came up in the Sala Grande, the reception left little doubt that Primetime had struck a nerve.

The lengthy standing ovation recognised not only Pattinson’s remarkably disciplined work but also Oppenheim’s confident transition from documentary filmmaking into fiction.

Yet applause somehow feels secondary to the lingering sensation the film leaves behind.

Long after the credits have faded, it is Pattinson’s carefully modulated voice that echoes in the memory, together with the uncomfortable awareness that every image we consume says as much about the viewer as it does about the person on screen.

Hansen himself remains an elusive figure throughout the film, neither fully condemned nor entirely celebrated, and Pattinson has acknowledged that he hopes the real broadcaster might ultimately recognise the film as an exploration of his cultural impact rather than a simple judgement of his character, even if Hansen has publicly distanced himself from the project.

Stepping back outside into the Venetian evening, with boats gliding across the lagoon and another red carpet already beginning somewhere nearby, it becomes impossible not to recognise the quiet irony at the heart of Primetime.

Venice is built on spectacle as much as cinema, on the irresistible desire to watch and to be watched. Oppenheim understands that instinct better than most; rather than delivering easy answers about morality, journalism or celebrity, he leaves us with something far more unsettling: the suspicion that the camera has been pointing in our direction all along.

For a fleeting moment, the people on screen stop being the object of observation. We do. And that simple reversal is what makes Primetime linger long after the festival lights have faded.

📷: Luca Carlino