When his wife dies in a car accident that he himself survives, Mitchell Davis feels nothing. His entourage suffers through tears, anger, shock, but he remains cold. A brilliant business banker, Davis begins to thoroughly take apart his luxurious and hypocritical business life, from his expensive suits to his designer house. A dangerous and absurd journey leads him to Karen, a lost soul and the mother of a 15-year-old boy.

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Jean-Marc Vallée appears to have became the new darling of A-list Hollywood actors. After getting Matthew McConaughey an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club, a nomination for Reese Witherspoon for Wild, he is in preproduction on two TV series (one for Amy Adams, another for Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman). Now the Canadian director is participating in the late-term but nonetheless meteoric rise of Jake Gyllenhaal, who is on a roll with major Hollywood movies in the service of his irresistible charisma. Its no surprise then that Demolition has a sensational strength, sensitivity and energy that go beyond the usual weaknesses of finely tuned business models – in the wake of boxing movie Southpaw. The filmmaker is slowly becoming a great and inescapable director of Hollywood melodrama.