Is there some slack that money can afford? That’s the question writer-director Brandon Cronenberg asks in his third film, the lurid and Exotic Infinity Pool, about rich Western tourists on a fictional island. This horror satire is often stylish and sometimes disturbing. It makes a point early on in a surprising manner only to continue emphasizing it through increasingly strange and even more disturbing means but only in its explicit, presumably NC-17-rated festival cut shown at Sundance. The theatrical version showing in America has been rated R; consequently, several scenes of sex and blood should have been already removed from it if you purchased a ticket. A film about the very worst kind of excess is likely what one would think about Infinity Pool. Yet its plot development around those explicit interludes is still different and interesting although it may seem to be slightly pointless.
Cronenberg’s camera spins disorientingly on its axis as though introducing an unremarkable vacation spot. As their stay comes to an end at an expensive hotel where they’ve pretended to be affable as a stagnant couple who take veiled malicious digs at each other out of repressed frustration, struggling novelist James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are almost done with their stay here too. Fellow tourist Gabi (Mia Goth) catches James’ eye when he looks away from Em. James and Em are lured outside the resort walls by Gabi with her rich nonchalant Swiss husband so that she leads him into palpable extramarital tensions – however, she possesses a dark side that turns out to be one of the film’s main undercurrents when it finally comes into focus.
The quartet’s escapades go terribly wrong with Detective Thresh (Thomas Kretschmann) informing them of how strict local customs call for harsh punishment except wealthy foreigners can bribe their way out with a bizarre, over-elaborate twist that intensifies the story’s underlying perspective on the corrosiveness of wealth. This piece of information is dropped so casually in Infinity Pool that it may take a minute to sink in (James does not quite get it either), although the more straightforwardly matter-of-fact Thresh has a schedule to keep and so the movie moves very swiftly from one scene to another whereupon its odd new plot mechanics rapidly take root.
This wacky procedure – more trippy than sci-fi, which gets inside you before you even have time to understand fully – creates an initially inexplicable shift within James Foster. Another point occurs when he sees himself die, an event that brings him immense relief, indicated by Skarsgård’s slight yet disturbing smile in portraying this moment. Eventually, he realizes that such liberation from death is also freedom from consequence thereby leading him into a secret society of people who are wealthy enough for it not to matter.
Infinity Pool’s remainder is mostly about the cultic hedonism of their generation behind distorting masks that involve in acts of violence and vandalism without fears of going to jail – or so it appears. Its structure eases as the film moves from these scenes of revelry, turning simultaneous audio-visuals into more avant-garde ones, thus lending themselves for a more hallucinatory experience albeit one that isn’t totally consuming the viewer like it does to the characters.
However, Skarsgård gives a creditable performance which often takes steps towards this emotional goal though sometimes falling short. In contrast to other members (well-off Caucasians who have enjoyed privileged childhoods), James married into money; an issue which has to do with his social status and insecurity and which Em uses casually when she mocks him during their first encounters. These attacks are however absorbed by Skarsgård quietly, each being only little enough beneath James’ friendly exterior until he can finally act completely on his own when his unbridled animalism comes across as emotionally accurate even if he crosses any line because there is still an inseparable emotional connection between him and his instincts.
He also suffers lingering insecurities and while still new to unforgiving debauchery, he retains a semblance of empathy and reticence thereby causing further divisions between him and other group members who force him through ever more twisted initiation rites just so that they can accept him as one of them. An explosion resulting from both male and monetary inadequacy leaves him yearning for excessive brutality and control.
Moreover, there’s no limit to how cruel they can be since their eyes match their destruction; hence crimes are committed everywhere including drug-induced orgies that become increasingly beautiful and weirdly ear-catching (the orgies are especially so because something James snorts before each one makes his vision turn neon-colored kaleidoscope occasionally rendered bone strobing visions pulsing with sex). However, the more James finds out about the disgusting realities of his deeds, the harder it is for him to choose between his former morals which were strictly defined by written laws and this tourist’s little world as a miniature of society in which things are not exactly the same.
Unfortunately, this leads to a rather rapid spiritual war that, nonetheless, raises questions about James’ ruthlessness in some of the most brutal and bloodiest scenes. However, even when Infinity Pool loses its footing, it retains its lingering sense of horror by making even this alien scenario feel familiar. The bad guys are completely human beings but they look like spoiled brats imposed from spoiled kids having nothing but sin without any punishment and subjugation without remorse due to their wealth that knows no bounds while rules aren’t important at all. You may come across someone you saw on TV once or twice, especially during reality shows or news reports concerning big Pharma; you might even identify someone you personally know—a horrifying prospect.
Verdict
Infinity Pool by Brandon Cronenberg is a disturbing novel that provides an exaggerated, multicolored view of sexual misconduct and violence on its way to the climax of the story. It however does not depart from the creepy examination of luxury as perversion in a modern Eyes Wide Shut society where wealth can guarantee you admission into the darkest depths of humanity. thanks to its committed cast that sometimes almost gets closer to this hypnotic narrative’s ultimate goals, though it may occasionally miss them.
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