Infinity Pool review: Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth go off the deep end
Brandon Cronenberg's brilliant, disturbing thriller is a violent takedown of wealth and privilege
It’s a little perfect that Infinity Pool, written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, makes its debut just as the topic of “nepo babies” (those given unfair professional advantage through family connections) is a feverishly trending topic. It’s not wholly unreasonable to question who gets the keys to our collective cultural ship, but in the case of David Cronenberg and his son, Brandon, it’s clear that not since Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach began penning piano tunes like his old man, Johann Sebastian, has there been a more exciting father-son dynasty in the arts.
For his third feature, Cronenberg the Younger doesn’t ape his father’s style so much as he expands upon it. With Infinity Pool, in comparison to Cronenberg the Elder’s good-but-not-great Crimes Of The Future, you could even say he’s perfecting it. In his previous films, Antiviral and Possessor, and more so with his latest, Brandon leans into whatever mysterious genetic mutation stirs his fascination with body horror, social paranoia, sexual deviance in a group setting, and the counter-intuitive allure of self-destruction. If you’ve watched David Cronenberg’s 1996 film Crash, probably the most extreme movie under his belt, then Brandon’s new one is for you.
Infinity Pool (named for elegantly designed swimming pools with a vanishing edge, often near an ocean, so from certain angles they give the illusion of going on forever) is set at a fancy-schmancy resort where emotionally distant married couple James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are vacationing. At first, this suggests the film will be a condemnation of the elite class and how they fail to realize how piddling their problems actually are, like Triangle Of Sadness. But Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner, one that’s literally awash in vomit and feces, is normal compared to what’s about to happen here.
James is a frustrated author. He married into wealth. He can’t get it together for a follow-up book and is delighted when he meets a fan at the resort. Gabi (Mia Goth) invites him out to dinner with her husband, Alban (Jalil Lespert), which he accepts, annoying Em because it’s the same place he just said he didn’t want to go.