Title: Infinity Pool
Describe This Movie In One Office Space Quote:
MILTON: Sir? I’ll take my traveler’s checks to a competing resort. I could write a letter to your board of tourism and I could have this place condemned. I could put… I could put… strychnine in the guacamole.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Fear and loathing in Li Tolqa.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 Albanians out of 5
Tagline: “A film by Brandon Cronenberg”
Better Tagline: “Scenes from a class struggle in the Garden of Earthly Delights“
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: One-hit wonder author James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are trying to relax at an all-inclusive resort in the country of Li Tolqa, but unwisely venture out of the safety of the resort’s grounds at the insistence of Gabi (Mia Goth) and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert). Events soon spin out of control, as the couple discovers just why the country is so attractive to wealthy tourists (and what Li Tolqa is spending its budget on instead of infrastructure).
“Critical” Analysis: The plot of Infinity Pool might sound reminiscent of The White Lotus, the HBO series about class struggles in exotic locales, but the movie takes that show’s particular Mai Tai and drops a few peyote buttons into it. Instead of sardonic exchanges and the odd death, think Hostel meets The Island, only (mostly) watchable.
What remains is the sense of entitlement common to each resort’s participants. In what is a slight exaggeration of the usual kid gloves rich tourists are treated with abroad, foreigners committing crimes in Li Tolqa are allowed to buy their way out of it in a way I won’t spoil but is revealed about 30 seconds into the trailer.
Em reacts to this development with horror, which would be (one hopes) the response of most right-thinking people. James, on the other hand, is intrigued. She’s all for leaving immediately, but James can’t find his passport. Worse, he meets up again with Gabi and some other guests who are keen to test the limits of this arrangement.
The journey from this point is a predictable one, and frankly not as shocking as advance word may have led you to believe. Narratively, it’s messy, but eye-catching. The movie is gory, hallucinatory, and psychosexually nightmarish. Reality and fantasy blur together, like the water and sky in one of those swimming structures that seem to go on forever. What are those called again?
Mia Goth (still can’t believe that’s her real name) continues to knock it out of the park after last year’s triumphant X and Pearl. She and Skarsgård are both up for anything, and their willingness to push the limits (Infinity Pool would be a bad first date movie, just FYI) draws us in to the building madness.
The digs at privilege and colonialism are obvious, much more so than in Possessor, Cronenberg’s previous film. James’s predicament is actually less sympathetic, because everything happening to him (he married the daughter of a famous publisher, we’re often reminded) is a result of his bad decision-making, starting with joining Gabi and Alban for a trip outside the concertina wire.
More revealing is James’s insecurity, which is clearly relatable to anyone who’s received criticism for somehow not earning their position. Like, say, the son of a famous director.
He need not have worried. Cronenberg’s inherited his father’s affection for body horror, but is for the most part a more conventional storyteller. Infinity Pool succeeds in spite of its predictability, thanks to the charisma of its leads and some imaginatively monstrous imagery. Cronenberg’s style is at times more of a kind with Panos Cosmatos than his old man, but he’s also carving out an aesthetic all his own.
Infinity Pool is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
