The Doctor’s Diagnosis: C-
Infinity Pool is the new film from director Brandon Cronenberg, son of the great David Cronenberg (probably best known for The Fly, Scanners, and A History of Violence). I moderately enjoyed Brandon’s previous film Possessor, even though its similarities to Inception were often distracting. Infinity Pool is, unfortunately, a bit of a regression for the director. While he certainly inherited his father’s penchant for graphic violence and body horror, he doesn’t seem to yet have the same grasp on character and storytelling as his old man. Infinity Pool is an interesting concept with some striking visuals, but it’s ultimately only borderline decent because the central idea isn’t paired with believable characters or an interesting narrative.
Alexander Skarsgård stars as struggling novelist James Foster, who goes on vacation with his wealthy wife Em at a resort in the middle of a third-world country. They make friends with a couple named Gabi and Alban (played by Mia Goth and Jalil Lespert) and the four of them take an ill-advised trip outside of the barbed wire-lined walls of the resort. After having too much to drink, James drunkenly hits a pedestrian with his car, gets arrested and sentenced to death. Fortunately for him, though, this disaster of a country may not have basic infrastructure, but they have somehow mastered cloning. In exchange for a large sum of money, the local authorities offer to clone James and execute the clone instead. The government gets money, the locals think that justice has been served and everyone walks away happy. The plot thickens (and becomes increasingly ridiculous) though, as James discovers that his new friends are members of a group of rich assholes that purposefully visit this country knowing that they can get away with murder.
There was a point, about halfway into the running time, that it felt like Cronenberg really had something with Infinity Pool. The social commentary on the wealthy is a bit too obvious to be considered clever, but the basic premise, once finally established, does open up a lot of dramatic and darkly comedic possibilities. When it’s revealed that these people treat this country as a kind of sadistic theme park, Infinity Pool suddenly became quite interesting despite the excessive length of time taken to arrive at this point. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t choose any of the interesting paths made available by its premise and instead devolves into an increasingly ponderous, pretentions slog into the arthouse.
At this point, the film’s clever idea is drowned out by hallucinations and increasingly nonsensical scene transitions. While the initial setup feels like something from the elder Cronenberg, the second half increasingly feels like more like something that Darren Aronofsky or David Lynch would make during their more pretentious periods. Characters are completely inconsistent from one scene to the next, sometimes being friends, then trying to kill each other then reverting back to being friends again. Characters that only moments earlier seemed to be fairly reasonable people are convinced to participate in a home invasion with shockingly little objection. Visuals are used for shock value even though they make little sense in the context of the story. Sometimes reminding me of Aronofsky’s godawful mother!, the last act of Infinity Pool is a purely academic exercise. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.
The film is salvaged somewhat by the strength of the core concept and the performances. Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth are both actors that I really wish would get offered better material because they regularly elevate bad-to-mediocre material into the realm of watchability. Both are stuck portraying maddeningly inconsistent characters with motivations and personalities that change on a dime for no particular reason. And yet they manage to overcome the weaknesses to the script to make Infinity Pool more entertaining than it deserves to be (and this movie would honestly be insufferable with lesser performances). Skarsgård makes James sympathetic even when the script is trying its damndest to make him unbearable. Goth does batshit crazy perhaps any better than any other actress in Hollywood and there are moments here when she is genuinely unnerving. Those moments rarely make sense, but that’s not her fault.
I’m really struggling with deciding between a D+ and a C- on this one. On one hand, I really can’t recommend this movie to anyone. On the other hand, the performances are excellent and the basic concept is intriguing. I have to give some points for originality and, in the film’s defense, I did see the edited-down R-rated version. It’s possible that the NC-17 version feels like a more coherent film. I doubt it, but it’s possible. I’m in a good mood, so I’ll give it a C-. But it’s a weak C-.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Pool_(film)#/media/File:Infinity_Pool_poster2.jpg
