Infinity Pool
Infinity Pool
Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman, Jaliil Lespert
Directed by Brandon Cronenberg
Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman, Jaliil Lespert
Directed by Brandon Cronenberg
If we could get away with every hedonistic act we've wanted to commit in our minds, would we do it? If we knew that we'd face no consequences for our actions, would we allow our better angels to prevail, or let the demon on our other shoulder dictate our desires? In a way, that's what "Infinity Pool" asks, but in a way that leaves the audience not really confused about what happened, but rather an apathetic shrug and wondering what happened to Brandon Cronenberg after his dazzling second feature "Possessor."
James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) is a struggling writer who's written one book in six years, and to gain inspiration his wealthy wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) takes him on a getaway to a luxurious island resort in the country of Latoka. There he meets Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth) who's a huge fan of his, and is invited to dine with her and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert). They spend the next day together, but on the way home during the night James accidentally hits and kills a local, and is instructed by Gabi to not report it to the police.
The police find out and arrest James the next day, saying in their country the recompense for murder is having the victim's family kill them, but James is given an out - by providing a decent sum of money, they'll make a duplicate who will take the fall. James and Em witness "James's" execution, and afterward Em wants to leave, but James can't find his passport. Gabi then invites him to join her friends - all of whom have committed crimes on the island and have had their duplicates take the blame - and James soon spirals into a dark world of murder, drugs, sex, and every form of debauchery that threatens to devour his very soul.
Brandon Cronenberg has made a name for himself outside the shadow of his acclaimed father, director David, by crafting his own way in the world of cinema despite following in his father's footsteps of directing body horror films. His first film "Antiviral" skewered the idea of celebrity as a form of illness, and only scratched the surface of what he could accomplish. Then in 2020, he directed the body horror film "Possessor" about an assassin who could take control of someone else's body to carry out her assigned hits, centering on the themes of alienation, identity, and feeling like a stranger in your own body. "Infinity Pool" is another body horror film that skimps on the "body horror" part and instead tries to tell its own theme: the idea of humanity unchecked, and what we'd do if we knew we'd get away with any negative impulse that gets into our head. While it seems like an intriguing endeavor, "Infinity Pool" never gets to the deep end, but instead finds comfort in wading in the shallow end, showing a sort of pretentiousness in thinking that the audience is dumber than they are.
The concept of an infinity pool is a fascinating one: it's a pool that, unlike traditional pools, doesn't have concrete sides, but rather are made to appear as though the water is disappearing into nothing, showing no boundaries. The parallel is obvious and it's no wonder Cronenberg named this film "Infinity Pool," because he wanted to convey the fact that if we don't have boundaries, we too would slip into the void of nothingness, viewing life as expendable and only living to serve our hedonistic needs. Maybe I'm thinking too much into it, because it seems that Cronenberg didn't put as much effort into the story as I'm thinking he did.
It's a shame because you got two incredibly talented horror-led actors in Alexander Skarsgard and Mia Goth, and Cronenberg managed to make them both so astonishingly dull. Skarsgard is best known for his role in the hit series "True Blood," but here he seems to dreamwalk through his performance. You never really get a feel for his character apart from the fact that he's permanently tied to his wife's father's career as a publicist so he could publish his own work, but he has no self-identity of his own. It could be due to the fact that there's a throwaway line in the film where one of Gabi's friends is concerned that he's actually the double and they killed the original, but that idea is never explored, and Skarsgard is left with a truly vanilla character with no emotional resonance.
Yet the real crime of the film is the abuse of Mia Goth, who had the year of her life last year with the Ti West double feature "Pearl" (which she was robbed of an Oscar nomination) and "X." Though she still attempts to give it her all, her character of Gabi is as simple as they come: she loves carnage for carnage's sake, and is an exceptionally mean-spirited person. That's really it for her, as she's not given any depth of character development outside of that, but she does have some of the best moments of the film, keeping it from the bottom of the barrel but only barely. Fortunately 2023 won't be a complete bust for her, as she's set to appear in Ti West's finale of his personal "X" trilogy "MaXXXine," and that's one film I'm eager to see.
The main problem with the film arises because of a script that really doesn't go anywhere in true narrative form. It introduces us to the characters and then parades them about in meaningless conversations and subpar action that wants to lead us to really feel connected to them, but afterward it wasn't even worth trying to discuss what happened: it was just boring. Although there was one moment in the film where Gabi is reading someone's review of James's book, saying that he managed to use a lot of words and not say anything, which is actually an apt description of this movie: it uses a lot of words, but ultimately there's nothing to say about it - or maybe I'm too simple to understand such a pretentious film.
The Score: D
James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) is a struggling writer who's written one book in six years, and to gain inspiration his wealthy wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) takes him on a getaway to a luxurious island resort in the country of Latoka. There he meets Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth) who's a huge fan of his, and is invited to dine with her and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert). They spend the next day together, but on the way home during the night James accidentally hits and kills a local, and is instructed by Gabi to not report it to the police.
The police find out and arrest James the next day, saying in their country the recompense for murder is having the victim's family kill them, but James is given an out - by providing a decent sum of money, they'll make a duplicate who will take the fall. James and Em witness "James's" execution, and afterward Em wants to leave, but James can't find his passport. Gabi then invites him to join her friends - all of whom have committed crimes on the island and have had their duplicates take the blame - and James soon spirals into a dark world of murder, drugs, sex, and every form of debauchery that threatens to devour his very soul.
Brandon Cronenberg has made a name for himself outside the shadow of his acclaimed father, director David, by crafting his own way in the world of cinema despite following in his father's footsteps of directing body horror films. His first film "Antiviral" skewered the idea of celebrity as a form of illness, and only scratched the surface of what he could accomplish. Then in 2020, he directed the body horror film "Possessor" about an assassin who could take control of someone else's body to carry out her assigned hits, centering on the themes of alienation, identity, and feeling like a stranger in your own body. "Infinity Pool" is another body horror film that skimps on the "body horror" part and instead tries to tell its own theme: the idea of humanity unchecked, and what we'd do if we knew we'd get away with any negative impulse that gets into our head. While it seems like an intriguing endeavor, "Infinity Pool" never gets to the deep end, but instead finds comfort in wading in the shallow end, showing a sort of pretentiousness in thinking that the audience is dumber than they are.
The concept of an infinity pool is a fascinating one: it's a pool that, unlike traditional pools, doesn't have concrete sides, but rather are made to appear as though the water is disappearing into nothing, showing no boundaries. The parallel is obvious and it's no wonder Cronenberg named this film "Infinity Pool," because he wanted to convey the fact that if we don't have boundaries, we too would slip into the void of nothingness, viewing life as expendable and only living to serve our hedonistic needs. Maybe I'm thinking too much into it, because it seems that Cronenberg didn't put as much effort into the story as I'm thinking he did.
It's a shame because you got two incredibly talented horror-led actors in Alexander Skarsgard and Mia Goth, and Cronenberg managed to make them both so astonishingly dull. Skarsgard is best known for his role in the hit series "True Blood," but here he seems to dreamwalk through his performance. You never really get a feel for his character apart from the fact that he's permanently tied to his wife's father's career as a publicist so he could publish his own work, but he has no self-identity of his own. It could be due to the fact that there's a throwaway line in the film where one of Gabi's friends is concerned that he's actually the double and they killed the original, but that idea is never explored, and Skarsgard is left with a truly vanilla character with no emotional resonance.
Yet the real crime of the film is the abuse of Mia Goth, who had the year of her life last year with the Ti West double feature "Pearl" (which she was robbed of an Oscar nomination) and "X." Though she still attempts to give it her all, her character of Gabi is as simple as they come: she loves carnage for carnage's sake, and is an exceptionally mean-spirited person. That's really it for her, as she's not given any depth of character development outside of that, but she does have some of the best moments of the film, keeping it from the bottom of the barrel but only barely. Fortunately 2023 won't be a complete bust for her, as she's set to appear in Ti West's finale of his personal "X" trilogy "MaXXXine," and that's one film I'm eager to see.
The main problem with the film arises because of a script that really doesn't go anywhere in true narrative form. It introduces us to the characters and then parades them about in meaningless conversations and subpar action that wants to lead us to really feel connected to them, but afterward it wasn't even worth trying to discuss what happened: it was just boring. Although there was one moment in the film where Gabi is reading someone's review of James's book, saying that he managed to use a lot of words and not say anything, which is actually an apt description of this movie: it uses a lot of words, but ultimately there's nothing to say about it - or maybe I'm too simple to understand such a pretentious film.
The Score: D
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