INFINITY POOL. Because Antiviral (2012) slipped past me — and, it seems, most of us — I became aware of Brandon Cronenberg on the release of his second feature Possessor (2020), which I still (shamefully) have not seen. Despite the suboptimal timing of that movie’s debut, it helped make the writer-director’s name (beyond its substantial legacy, of course) as a comer to the psychedelic-horror realm; more than one ardent appreciator has referred to Possessor as “the most fucked-up movie ever made.” With such a glowing endorsement, how could I resist Infinity Pool?
As the fortunes of boutique horror have risen and fallen in the last decade or so, there has been a growing backlash against the sort of arthouse subgenre stuff of which, with this movie as my only evidence, I would say B. Cronenberg is already a master. I cannot account for this antipathy, being of a mind to embrace almost any non-mainstream cinematic endeavor based on original ideas that manages to find an audience (despite recent conventional wisdom that imagination and commerce must necessarily be separate and unequal). It is only fair to admit that, based on my constant contrarianism and ongoing cold war against the unmaking of the indie revolution of the ’90s, I was/am in a position to celebrate Infinity Pool, perhaps even beyond my own enjoyment of it. Fortunately, I like it just about as much as I like the idea of it.
Dispirited novelist James (Alexander Skarsgård), unmotivated and unpublished six years after his debut, has decided a change of venue might stoke his inspiration. And so, financed by his wife Em’s (Cleopatra Coleman) substantial family resources, the two book a resort holiday in the troubled nation of La Tolqa. Behind the razor-wire fence of the hotel, though, the vacation does little to foster James’ creativity or the conviviality of the couple’s interactions. And when James becomes enamored of a seductively cosmopolitan couple (Mia Goth and Jalil Lespert) who purport to be fans of his writing, things only get more strained (and weird and violent). A drunken day-trip outside the wire culminates in a road-accident which, in turn, subjects James to the arcane, quasi-supernatural mechanisms of La Tolqa corporal punishment and, in turn, awakens within him some repugnant strain of boredom and attendant release. With his new friends (and a cadre of fellow bourgeois sickies) he begins to explore the “freedom” afforded him by his privilege, Em having very quickly fled back to America. But the hideous, hypersexual, barbaric, hallucinogenic freakout lifestyle may (or may not) prove too much for his constitution.
While the execution (pun intended) of Infinity Pool, very nearly perfect, serves its narrative and (presumably) its thematic intent, I cannot help but feel that the story itself, wanders a bit beyond the borders of its purpose. Still, the bravado of the movie’s violence, the caustic wit of its contempt for the characters and the simultaneous stateliness of its aesthetic and ridiculous humor of the whole affair carries through.
It would be unfair to Brandon to discuss his work only in light of his famous father David Cronenberg, but I think it bears a mention that he seems to have embraced the notion of a family business, seemingly having taken enough poison with his mother’s milk to revel in the beautiful, transgressive horrors of cinematic vivisection largely created by dear old dad; more power to him. The legacy takes nothing away from his emergent identity as a formidable creative mind and a welcome purveyor of disturbing cinematic surprises. R. 117M. BROADWAY.
POKER FACE. Note: Russell Crowe recently directed and starred in a movie with the same title; this is not that.
Perhaps because it is so frequently trumpeted — sometimes by me — that we live in an era of cinematic extinction, that movies have been replaced by television, I seldom use this space to discuss or yammer on about episodic stuff. There must always be exceptions, though, and the constantly evolving means of production and distribution available within the previously limited confines of TV have proven appealing enough to draw some of the best-established names in the movie game.
Rian Johnson is not new to this, of course; he directed some of the most celebrated episodes of Breaking Bad and his bank-busting deal with Netflix circumvents the conventions of Hollywood doctrine. And with his influence within the establishment, he has now been able to conceive and execute a thoroughly modern series in an old-school style.
Poker Face has us riding shotgun with Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), a smartass with the preternatural ability to detect untruths, as she evades some casino heavies and bops around the American Southwest solving murders. There are echoes of ’70s and ’80s classics here (and more than a few elbows in the ribs of Tarantino), carried off with Johnson’s customary combination of accessibility, cleverness and cinematic vocabulary. TVMA. 53M. PEACOCK.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
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This article appears in Hospitals Are Struggling to Meet Earthquake Safety Deadline.