![PRIMETIME (2026): A Film That Shows the Media at Its Darkest and Most Frightening [Critic's Notebook Series]](https://film-book.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Robert-Pattinson-Primetime-01-1200x675-1-700x394.png "Primetime (2026): A Film That Shows The Media At Its Darkest And Most Frightening [critic's Notebook Series]")
Primetime [Critic’s Notebook Series]
A24‘s sensational new drama, Primetime, explores intense themes in a provocative way, making the viewer question the media’s darkest sides and wondering why we so rarely see those stories publicized these days.
Is the media too consumer friendly these days? The media’s obsession over the Kelly Clarkson situation that arose in Brooklyn, New York has saturated headlines this week in the news. For those who don’t know, she accused a store of mistreatment when they refused to sell her a store model of a $15,000 bird that was on display. In a twist, that bird is now worth $15 million, or so they say. While that is a somewhat light human interest story, it is typical of what the media successfully covers nowadays.
However, the movie Primetime focuses on a much darker side of the media that digs deep inside the mind of everyday people who are pursuing animalistic desires. That side of the media which was reflected by the success of the show, “To Catch a Predator,” was soon overshadowed by the success of a more mainstream human interest show, “What Would You Do?” as seen dramatized late in Primetime. It’s certain that the media prefers lighter stories than the dark one explored in the terrifically made aforementioned picture from Lance Oppenheim.
Robert Pattinson’s interpretation of his real-life character, Chris Hansen, is one where the character is in love with himself for trying to take out perverts and losers from society. Evidenced by a scene on a plane where Chris shoots the breeze with a fan who compliments him many times over, it is clear that Chris loves himself, but the public turned on him for his dark look at human beings when a law official killed himself after being nabbed by his show, “To Catch a Predator.”
Maybe, the media is losing its darker edge when something as big as the Clarkson story is the most interesting news we have to offer these days. Also, it’s hard to imagine “What Would You Do?”‘s John Quiñones acting like Hansen acted in that plane scene in Primetime. It ultimately becomes clear that America prefers the lighter side of the media than the dark one.
Primetime digs deep into frightening subject matter. It shows vulnerable adult human beings who are willing to throw their lives away, thinking that a child is willing to meet them for sex and rescue them from their dead-end lives. This film’s portrait of the mentally unstable is brilliant and the way Chris Hansen exploits them for ratings is fascinating to behold. Primetime is not an easy watch, but it’s a necessary film to see.
Primetime‘s ending drives home my point that audiences like a happy ending. Its last scene has a side character, Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), receiving his SAG card in the mail for the dark side he embraced through his work while appearing as a decoy in “To Catch a Predator.” Why doesn’t Primetime simply end with the show’s demise? Instead, it ends with a positive aspect that comes from the “acting” Plum did for the show. It proves that audiences needs to be spoon-fed a somewhat happy ending even in a film that doesn’t warrant it.
Now, that ending is still great, though. It proves that Plum has overcome the darkness he faced by triumphing in his goal to be a professional actor. But, at what cost? Primetime is one of the year’s 10 best films. Besides showing Plum’s success, the movie also shows Merritt Wever’s Andie Bender, a key producer of “To Catch a Predator” being overcome by darkness and her lack of compassion for the human monsters who prey on the most vulnerable – the kids that the predators in Primetime think they’re meeting for sex. Bender wants to exploit the topic to get ratings and doesn’t think of a lighter angle to the material. “What Would You Do?” ultimately becomes its replacement. The dark side is thus defeated in favor of the light side.
“What Would You Do?” is still on the air, now going for 18 years with little signs of it running out of steam. That’s because it shows the light at the end of the tunnel. It usually shows the lighter, more optimistic, side of humanity where people help those less fortunate and give them a hand up. “To Catch a Predator” ends where “What Would You Do?” begins. “What Would You Do” offers hope while the less successful, “To Catch a Predator” offers despair and lack of hope for the human race as a whole.
Primetime is a wonderfully complex movie. Consider it in the vein of 1976’s Network, another movie that shows the dark side of the media, which exploits a man’s mental instability. Both films show the darker side of the media, but Primetime is smart enough to end with a positive scene where the side character gets his SAG card. It shows that good things can come from the bad. That helps defend my argument that the media prefers a happy ending. What will come of the Kelly Clarkson situation is unknown, but something tells me it will have a happy ending because that’s what people prefer and the media seems to like that outcome to most stories these days.
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