Following in the footsteps of Possessor, Brandon Cronenberg continues to wander into the darkest recesses of one’s consciousness with the delightfully insane Infinity Pool.
Neon’s thriller-horror premiered at Sundance last week, as Mia Goth walked the red carpet with co-star Alexander Skarsgård on the phone. A playful entrance that arguably prepares you for the movie, as if anything could really equip an audience for such repulsive, mind-bending beauty.
This story is to some extent more accessible than Cronenberg’s predecessors. In a way, this just makes the story confuse you all the more. Leave it. Let the Canadian writer-director’s new film take you on a journey to Li Tolqa, a dreamy destination where the waters are clear and the morals decidedly murky.
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Infinity Pool has a dystopian loophole and a moral dilemma
In this hostile paradise, James Foster (Skarsgård) tries to overcome his writer’s block by going on vacation with his wealthy wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman).
With a poorly received novel in his pocket, the author has no intention of actually writing. The perilous prospect of venturing outside the exclusive resort appeals to him more than staring at a blank page (can you blame him?). Especially when he is accompanied by the seductive actress Gabi (Goth), who, among other things, strokes his ego during a day at the beach. Meanwhile, her partner, famed architect Alban (Jalil Lespert), and Em are chilling just feet away.
Back from a swim in a secluded cove, a tragic accident claims the life of a local man. Dealing with the authorities in a police state is daunting, and James faces a harsh sentence for manslaughter. When a dystopian loophole sends him off the hook, the payoff ushers in hyper-personal hell and a reflection on class and responsibility.
Brandon Cronenberg’s Body Horror elements push the boundaries
Infinity Pool, a flawed Chinese box game, builds on Possessor’s themes and extends not an ounce of mercy to James, nor to the audience. A relentless ride that casts aside fundamental questions of identity and ethics, Cronenberg’s third outing is an agent of chaos.
Like his second film, Infinity Pool explores dissociative behavior, doppelgänger(s) and the idea that individual evolution can go in circles.
It does this through chilling, ultra-violent sequences and sexual hallucinations that earn it its R rating. A trippy journey to the center of our being, the film takes detours in unexpected places via drug-enhanced, transformative orgies. Under stroboscopic lights, lustful anatomy morphs in a thrilling attempt to push the boundaries of our flesh, with Cronenberg deploying his gamut of body horror imagery that will prove hard to shake off. Those same gender-binary-smashing images will have conservatives clutching their pearls and yelling at clouds.
Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgård play Depraved With Gusto
Skarsgård and Goth happily lean into their characters’ perversions as we watch in horror and excitement.
The Swedish actor delivers a layered turn as James, staring at his degaussed moral compass but seduced by the possibility of pure, casual brutality without consequence.
Yet it is Goth who leads the show with her trademark wide-eyed ambiguity that slowly descends into utter unhingedness. She is the star. She so naturally owns the role of Gabi, exuding sexiness and danger in an over-the-top, intoxicating mix that makes us even more excited to watch MaXXXine by Ti West than we were when Pearl came out months ago.
Infinity Pool and the “Eat the Rich” movie canon.
If you’ve seen the finale of Possessor, you know that Cronenberg isn’t subtle (if not, please fix that), which is why Infinity Pool’s thin, if grotesquely funny, anti-capitalist satire leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. As is the substandard idea that Li Tolqa could be a proxy for our planet, battered and torn apart by people carefree living in it as if it were a playground where free passes are virtually infinite.
The right of Gabi and her friends is strictly linked to their status. The audience desperately wants these characters to get their comeuppance while wondering what it would feel like to have that limitless freedom. As you search for an uncomfortable answer, the movie reminds you that money can buy you anything and even invent a brand new conscience to corrupt and kill as you see fit.
It’s a grim prospect to be sure, and one that sets the movie apart from its recent, naive entries in the “Eat the Rich” canon. These latter films act like revenge fantasies, claiming that there could one day be some form of retribution for the wealthy.
Cronenberg offers the opposite of that. Infinity Pool is a nightmarish scenario of immorality, cynical, discouragingly assuring that nothing will disturb the wealthy, who are unlikely to perish at the hands of the working class. The cycle of imbalance of power will always find new offenders who look an awful lot like the old ones, the film suggests.
And yet the film also unexpectedly offers a beacon of hope in its final moments. In its latest abandonment, Cronenberg’s latest suggests that playing a game with no rules can eventually eat the rich until there’s nothing left. However, it is better not to hold your breath.
Infinity Pool is in cinemas from January 27.
Stefania Sarrubba is a feminist entertainment writer from London, UK. Traumatized at a young age by Tim Curry’s Pennywise and Dario Argento’s films, she grew up believing horror wasn’t her cup of tea. Until she got her teeth into cannibal films with a female protagonist. Jamie.
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