We meet Eleonore in The Pleasure of Being Robbed as she greets a total stranger on the street as if she’s a long-lost friend, all the while relieving her of her purse. An incorrigible thief for reasons never explained, Eleonore (Eleonore Hendricks) steels a car on a Manhattan street even though she doesn’t know how to drive. She casually gives a friend a lift back to his home in Boston (as he provides lessons in steering and breaking). Eleonore has no awareness of the consequences of her actions, yet literally wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Director Joshua Safdie’s indie film goes out of focus and his compositions are sometimes awkward but apt. His camera seems to observe reality rather than participate in the staging of reality, a central conceit of indie filmmaking at least since John Cassavetes. We learn nothing about Eleonore. Is she a trickster or simply a criminal, a kleptomaniac or one of those people who give free spirits a bad name? Hard to tell, yet the film’s cumulative impression is intriguing.
The Pleasure of Being Robbed will be a fascinating document one day of how Manhattan looked and sounded at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The film festival favorite is out on DVD.
