Piscina infinita

This is a great film to get lost in, and experience the story and it's main character, Skarsgard. I do love original films, and early in the piece, it was so cool, not knowing where the film was going, but later on, in the last 40 minutes, we have moments of predicability. I found this a fun shock movie, where we have some scenes. Which are truly memorably bizarre, the final one, a scene of normality, staying in my mind the most. This is one of these films, that lingers in the memory, days after you see it. It has strobing. 180 degree turn shots, a daunting music score, cloning, and sexy Mia Goth, really playing her part to the hilt. One X rated sex shot we could of done without. Brandon Cronenberg (David's) has definitely created something originally appealing and engrossing, but it gets too ludiicrous and crazy in it's second half. Some of the bloodletting scenes, are pretty heavy. Definitely recommended, but be warned.

Writer James Foster and his wife are holidaying in a beautiful yet corrupt and barbaric country when they befriend another couple. On their way home from a day of picnicking James hits and kills a local farmer with the car. He is arrested and sentenced to be executed by the farmer's son. However, there is a way out of this predicament.

Reading the plot summaries of this it seemed like it was going to be a pretentious arthouse film. When I discovered that it is written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg, I was convinced that this would be a weird-for-weirdness-sake arthouse flick.

To my surprise, however, the film starts quite interestingly and engagingly and develops quite well. There are some artsy scenes, largely drugged out dream sequences, so we aren't spared that but for the most part the first 60-70% of the film is quite good.

The clone idea, its uses and abuses and its effect on James Foster was fascinating and I figured this would be the thrust of the remainder of the film. I was running over in my mind where the film could go from there and most of the possibilities were quite exciting.

However, instead of going down one of these paths Cronenberg chooses a lesser one, one that lives up to the expectation I had at the beginning of pretentious mindscrewery. Quite disappointing as the film seemed set up for a powerful, thrilling climax.

After Antiviral and The Possessor, Infinity Pool continues Brandon Cronenberg's path to being a film maker to watch. His films are unique and he will supersede his dad nicely once his legendary career comes to an end.

The casting is great with Mia Goth & Alexander Skarsgard continuing their trend of picking projects that are more exciting than the typical hollywood fair. Both are superb here and are the perfect pair with Goth on manic form, almost on Pearl levels of insanity at times.

The movie has unique ideas and surprises that don't go the conventional ways you'd expect. The film is gorgeous to look at despite being horrific in nature and the ending is well done. The normality of it all is chilling and gets under your skin after what's taken place the previous two hours.

Highly recommend.

A holiday with your girl takes quite a turn, you only came for a short stay, a brief sojourn, but when returning from the beach, an accident, leads to a breach, and the next day you're arrested, and interned. As you have wealth, you can settle and walk free, an odd procedure and some strange hyperbole, but a boundary's been stepped over, no longer fixed in an enclosure, plus there's a catalyst, to incite, who's full of glee.

Mia Goth, as the seductive Gabi Bauer, alongside her hedonistic friends, introduce the somewhat innocent James Foster, more than ably performed by Alexander Skarsgård, to their limitless world of excess, a world that doesn't quite reward him quite as well as it does his newly found playmates.

Great performances, kaleidoscopic cinematography, original in its interpretation, worth a watch, but you may well wish you hadn't, a bit like James.

Infinity Pool, the latest from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, focuses on James and Em Foster, on vacation to help James clear his head in order to attempt writing his second novel. James and Em meet and are guided by a mysterious couple also vacationing outside of the resort to find themselves stuck in a culture packed with sex, violence, and unimaginable terrors. After a fatal vehicular accident leaves them facing the wrath of local law enforcement, James and Em are faced with a decision: be executed for their crime or, if rich enough, watch themselves die. What results is a downward plunge into debauchery, murder, and desperation.

Infinity Pool stars Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth. Fresh off his tilt as Amleth in 2022's The Northman, Skarsgård plays a very different character here. In Infinity Pool Skarsgård is James Foster, struggling writer married to Em Foster, daughter of a power publisher and the couple's breadwinner. An amenable guy, James is enjoying his vacation with Em at Lotoka, a beachside country. Skarsgård plays James with the air of a man a bit adrift in life, clinging onto Em as a comfortable life raft. As an actor used to playing characters with power (see: True Blood) or iron determination (Mute, The Northman), Skarsgård takes a surprising turn as a meek, easily-lead man. While the change of pace is refreshing, Skarsgård's portrayal of James is nothing noteworthy. His passable acting is enough to offset the insanity that is Mia Goth.

Mia Goth as Gabi Bauer is trouble from the first moment she appears on screen until her final. A performance that starts unsettling before ramping up to completely unhinged, Goth milks every ounce of craziness she can from the script. While it's not always for the best (Goth has some truly questionable line readings in this), she's by far the overall best part of the movie. While her characterization is maddening, the motivations Cronenberg gives Gabi are nebulous at best. Thankfully, that's no fault of Goth's and when she shows up on screen, audiences are in for a treat.

Written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, Infinity Pool is the director's second outing after 2020's amazing debut, Possessor. Sadly, the sophomore slump is apparent in his second project, giving audience and body horror fans a lackluster followup that's unfocused and meandering. From a directing standpoint, Cronenberg is still sharp, delivering tension and suspense along with the cringe-inducing scenes the family is known for. Extreme closeups of mutilation, murder, and blood by the buckets (topped off with a cumshot in the film's first 30 minutes) will put moviegoers on their backfoot while being completely vulnerable to whatever could happen next. Cinematographer Karim Hussain, who also shot the beautiful Possessor, delivers on the goods again, providing a remarkable visual journey that James embarks upon. Cronenberg's choice to shoot Infinity Pool in Croatia, one of the planet's most beautiful countries, while mostly resisting the opportunity to display that beauty and instead focus on the grime and side streets is a commendable decision that lines up with tone of the movie.

As a writer, after tackling the theme of identity loss in an increasingly technological world in Possessor, in Infinity Pool no such messages seem to exist outside of a general human desensitivity to death. The first act might be the story's strongest, developing characters and creating situations that will entice the audience to be locked in and attentive. Unfortunately in the second act turn, where everything starts to fall apart for James, is also where everything will fall apart for the audience. James' descent into depravity, while interesting to look at in a well executed montage of sex and psychedelics, ultimately leads to a chaotic story with little in the way of explanation or true resolution.

Overall, Infinity Pool is a mess of a movie. Within that mess are hints at something good, possibly great, but Cronenberg seems to be too in love with the idea of creating something off kilter more than telling an actual story. Alexander Skarsgård's performance is passable as a man lost in hedonism, while Mia Goth's unhinged insanity somehow fluctuates between amazing and downright lousy. Lacking the usual amount of body horror audiences have come to expect from the name Cronenberg, this film instead chooses to skate by on its ambience, which doesn't always work in its favor.