Movie Review : Infinity Pool (2023)
I love vacation resorts. They are weird and impersonal little hideaway from your responsibilities where you can be whoever you want for a predetermined period of time. By that, I mean drinking, eating, sleeping and partying irresponsibly until your body catches up to what you're doing. They are a form of existential freedom you can buy. In his latest movie Infinity Pool, Canadian director and heir to horror royalty Brandon Cronenberg wonders how much of that existential freedom you can buy over there until it stops being fun.
Infinity Pool tells the story of James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard), a struggling writer vacationing at a luxury resort with his rich wife (Cleopatra Coleman). Over there, he meets Gabi (the always great Mia Goth), a rare fan of the only novel he's ever published. She invites the Fosters to a off-resort getaway along with her husband (Jalil Lespert), which ends in a drunk driving incident. Gabi suggests that they leave the body there and head back to the resort like nothing happened, which will turn out to be a terrible idea.
A Copy of a Copy of a Copy
The underlying principle of Infinity Pool is simple: when a vacationer fucks up, the fictional nation of Li Tolqa manages (for a fee) to apply the law while maintaining its touristic appeal by creating a live double of the offender and executing it in front of the guilty party. It's kind of a way to say "don't fuck up again or next time it'll be you", except that if you can afford infinite doubles, you can fuck up as many times as you want and everybody wins. That title is a sneaky great double entendre if I've ever seen one.
I'm unsure whether I've ever seen a better allegory for privilege. The awesome thing in James' predicament is that he doesn't know (and will never know) whether or not he's his real self or whether Li Tolqa officials executed the real James and substituted his clone. By paying to alleviate the consequences of your bad choices, everything you do loses its meaning. By being able to do what you want, when you want and indulging in it, you destroy the foundations of your identity. You become your privilege.
James realizes this in a brilliant scene, where he believes that he's torturing a hooded Li Tolqan official when it's revealed that he's just beating up another clone of himself paid by his decadent friends who are most likely clones of their former, more humane selves as well. Brandon Cronenberg also brilliantly illustrates this through the psychedelic drug scenes, where the decadent vacationers become one pile of horny flesh. The mechanics of James' nightmare are inexorable, but he seems like the only party not enjoying himself.
Ballardian emptiness
The influence of iconic British writer J.G Ballard (and personal favourite) is all over Infinity Pool. There's a lot of Cronenberg's old man aesthetics as well, but Infinity Pool is, first and foremost, a movie about the inescapable mechanics of modern living. Cronenberg explores this idea through the juxtaposition of mundane luxury living and absolute fucking debauchery. A boring dinner scene can transform into a murderous home invasion. Drinks with friends into a psychedelic orgy, etc.
I believe the brilliance of these scenes lies in the supporting characters not having any personality whatsoever outside of their most animalistic instincts. They are predators lounging under the sun during the day and prowling the resort at night after they loaded up on liquor and drug. That is very much a Ballardian trope: when humans reach peak comfort and sophistication, it induces a poisonous boredom that makes them revert to their most primitive and cruel selves. They're responsible for it, but not completely.
*
Infinity Pool is very good. It's smart and colourful. Psychedelic without being abstract or pointless. It's better than Possessor and lives up to Brandon Cronenberg's father's legacy. It also manages to make a good point about systemic issues without coming off as moralistic, which has to be some type of award-winning achievement of its own in 2023. This one is going to age well and earn a well-deserved place in Brandon Cronenberg's own legacy and in the history of horror movies as well.
