Hypnotic or stupefying? "This is the third time I've seen it, and I still don't know if it works," a colleague told me as we left a screening of David Cronenberg's"Cosmopolis." I totally understand. The movie is undeniably something — but what exactly?

Adapted from Don DeLillo's stormily received 2003 novel about a 28-year-old currency speculator, the billionaire master of an imploding financial universe whose whimsical desire for a haircut entails an entire day crossing gridlocked midtown Manhattan via stretch limo, "Cosmopolis" is an exercise in constant natter and glacial forward glide — a movie that lulls even as it disconcerts.