David Cronenberg says he didn’t anticipate the Occupy Wall Street movement as he prepared to shoot Cosmopolis, his new film which made its world premiere Friday at the Cannes Film Festival in southern France.

Cosmopolis, a scathing critique of capitalism and the financial industry, was shooting in New York as Occupy Wall protests erupted last year, Cronenberg said at a news conference at Cannes.

"We didn't think we were making ... a prophecy, when we started making the movie, but suddenly that was the case," Cronenberg told reporters. "For some reason our movie is capturing the moment. It became a documentary instead of a fiction film."

The film features Twilight star Robert Pattinson as a ruthless billionaire, who is travelling across the city in a stretch limo to get a haircut in his childhood neighbourhood. As he rides, his journey is held up by anti-capitalist protests, a presidential motorcade and calls from his anxious wife (Sarah Gadon) and other women who want cash for sex (Juliette Binoche, Patricia McKenzie).

Cronenberg, Pattinson, Gadon and Binoche walked the red carpet at Cannes before the debut screening.

Pattinson steps up

Pattinson plays a man who has it all, but stands to lose it at any minute on unstable financial markets, yet doesn’t seem to understand what his life is about. The actor said he was initially intimidated by the role, which marks a departure from his image as teen heartthrob.

"I can't explain what the movie is about," he told reporters on Friday. "I kind of spent two weeks in my hotel room worrying and confusing myself."

Cronenberg, who says he wants to work with Pattinson again, said he chose the actor because he was not afraid to take a negative role.

"You need someone that people want to watch and he was brave enough to play a character who is not really sympathetic," Cronenberg said. "Some actors don't want to play that. And he was not afraid."

Critical reaction mixed

As with A Dangerous Method, Cronenberg’s last film, Cosmopolis is wordy, with long discourses on the nature of the modern economy lifted straight from Don DeLillo's dystopian 2003 novel.

Reaction to the film from the Cannes audience was mixed, with some critics put off by its wordy dissections of capitalism.

Maclean’s critic Brian D. Johnson remarked on the quiet, contained feel of the film, most of which takes place inside the limo and on the long stretches of dialogue.

“This is the most talkative, and the most explicitly political, movie Cronenberg has made,” he said.

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian called it "stilted, self-important and fantastically shallow", but a colleague on the same newspaper, Xan Brooks disagreed, describing Cosmopolis as a "film of cool, diamond brilliance."

Variety praised Pattinson’s performance and declared the film a great fit for Cronenberg.

"An eerily precise match of filmmaker and material, Cosmopolis probes the soullessness of the 1 per cent with the cinematic equivalent of latex gloves," Variety’s Justin Chang wrote.