The Shrouds

I am so excited that David Cronenberg put this film out and that he still has fresh ideas, which didn't seem to be the case in his last film. Crimes of the Future felt like a greatest hits compilation for the director and it was not particularly engaging. I was thrilled to be intrigued by The Shrouds from the first scene! However, the film ends up being simply one philosophical conversation between characters after another while nearly nothing happens in the plot. And while the ideas are intriguing and the characters do find some level of dimension, this film is all telling with no showing and eventually frustrates the viewer. I enjoyed the fresh ideas but struggled with the fact that this was a film, I still look forward to his next work! Cronenberg has had a marvelous career and still has us thinking.

Cronenberg's 2024 film explores death and technology. The film surrounded the idea of grieving with the story of Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a wealthy tech-entrepreneur mourning the death of his wife. His influence within the tech field, using a new software (called "Shroud") for mourning tradition that the living surviving loved ones can use.

His wife's body, is documented with cameras showing the decaying process, connected to cellular apps, etc.. Personal technology allows for the mourning to continue - it's the digital age for necromancy? A love like Cassel's obsession with his wife's body, that he projects onto to his wife's sister both roles played by Diane Kruger.

The rest of the film becomes almost noir-like amateur sleuth story. Karsh trying to solve recent desecrated cemetery plots including his wife's burial spot. The film's pace swifts into subplots, it's bit of a sidetracked.

The film is different from his recent productions, set in Canada. Its tone is somber, almost quiet not relying gore or onscreen violence. The most violent reference is the desecrated burials (which isn't seen and the other is Cancer. The terminal illness killed Karsh's wife (within his dreams, flashback scenes).

The film got critical reactions since Cronenberg's motivation was the death of the director's wife, Carolyn. Aesthetically, this film wasn't really exploring body horror, completely abandoned even the gore effects. Yes, it can be suggested as a decaying corpse to body deformation caused by Cancer and it's surgeries on Karsh's late wife.

Moreover, it explores Westernized traditions of memorialize the dead, mourning process catches up with 21st century technology: social media culture. If this is Cronenberg's prediction in the near future of memorialization? It's pretty credible that wealthy tech icons could be exploring. He puts quite of bit in tech aspects from encryption to resolution topics, throws off film's humanistic focus.

It's disappointing to see a talented filmmaker lose his way in one of his works. Unfortunately, that's precisely the problem with the latest effort from acclaimed writer-director David Cronenberg in a film that seemingly had potential but fails to pull it together in the final product. Karsh Relikh (Vincent Cassel) is a successful Canadian businessman consumed with grief over the death of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger), who attempts to cope with his loss by inventing a questionable and arguably macabre technology that allows survivors to peer into the graves of their departed loved ones to, for lack of a better explanation, monitor the deterioration of the deceaseds' corpses. From this premise (and the misleading trailer), one might get the impression that this would be a story with dark, spooky, supernatural overtones. However, as it plays out, the film goes from tangent to tangent to tangent without direction or satisfactory closure, leading viewers on a wild goose chase that, in the end, feels unresolved and incomplete. This alleged horror offering (which is admittedly not particularly scary or engaging) is actually more of a mystery/psychological thriller that ends up weaving a jumbled web of story arcs involving ever-evolving incidents of international business espionage and technological intrigue, the paranoid (and head-scratchingly erotically driven) ravings of Becca's conspiracy theory-obsessed sister, Terry (Kruger in a dual role), the love-starved pining of Terry's unbalanced ex-husband and expert computer hacker, Maury (Guy Pearce), and Karsh's tawdry affair with Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the blind wife of a dying Hungarian corporate magnate (Vieslav Krystyan) who wants to invest in the expansion Karsh's graveyard technology venture, among other puzzling and seemingly unrelated narrative threads. Add to this the picture's glacial pacing and a series of overlong and not especially revelatory dream sequences, and viewers are left with a genuinely bizarre offering. To its credit, the production features some inventive cinematography, a capable collection of performances, and a surprising wealth of inspired and perfectly timed comic relief (truly one of the film's best attributes), but these assets aren't enough to save a sinking ship that plunges deeper and deeper the longer this release goes on, all the way up to its abrupt and unfulfilling conclusion. This clearly is one of those productions that's likely to prompt many audience members to ask, "What was the director thinking?", a justifiable inquiry, to be sure. Cronenberg has produced a fine body of work over the course of his career, but it's nearly impossible to fathom what he was going for here.

This was a disappointing movie outing. After Crimes of the Future featured a committed exploration of a weird slice of dystopian future life, I was hoping for more of the same here. Meanwhile, what we get are several disjointed, partially explored ideas mixed together, a meandering narrative, and an unsatisfying ending. Is this a political thriller? A familial drama? A physiological body horror? And the unrealistic, spoon-fed dialogue, which unfortunately seems characteristic of Canadian cinema (I say this as a Canadian). I kept waiting to feel something, to be intrigued by some thought provoking ideas, but it never happened. If you must watch this, save your money and wait until it streams.

The Shrouds, directed by David Cronenberg, begins with a hauntingly intriguing premise: a near-future world where custom-designed tombs allow the living to view their deceased loved ones in real time. Vincent Cassel portrays Karsh, the enigmatic inventor of this macabre innovation, navigating a frozen landscape of grief, obsession, and longing. The film's opening offers a glimpse into Cronenberg's flair for unsettling, cerebral storytelling, but the promise quickly unravels into a convoluted and excessive narrative.

Cassel delivers a restrained performance, perfectly capturing Karsh's detachment and obsession, while Diane Kruger as his deceased wife and Soo-Min as a potential client's blind spouse provide compelling, if underutilized, presences. However, the supporting characters, including Jennifer Dale as Karsh's former sister-in-law and love interest, are sidelined by a sprawling plotline that veers into espionage, eco-activism, and corporate conspiracy. These elements feel disconnected, detracting from the emotional core of the story.

Cronenberg's signature exploration of body horror and the grotesque resurfaces here, but the graphic depictions of mutilation and surgery feel more gratuitous than meaningful, overshadowing the thematic depth the film initially hints at. The film's focus on existential musings about grief and attachment is muddled by its insistence on indulging in sensationalist visuals and a jumbled narrative.

Adding to the film's shortcomings is an overuse of product placement, which distracts from the immersive atmosphere and undermines its artistic integrity. The Shrouds falters in its attempt to balance intellectual ambition with visceral spectacle, leaving audiences with a fragmented and unsatisfying experience.

Rating: 5/10 - A promising concept buried under excessive spectacle and an overcomplicated plot.