It’s about time I see a good movie, innit? I do have some expectations regarding Infinity Pool just going off a few whispers from back in the day, when this movie was released in May. Most excitingly, this is the second horror movie of the year to feature Mia Goff; with the first one being Pearl, where she excelled. If Goth is to be a new indicator of good horror, then I will smile every time I see her.
James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are holidaying in Li Tolqa, with a strict understanding that they are not to leave the hotel grounds, for the local setting can get a little hairy for those unaccustomed. But when James meets Gabi Bauer (Mia Goff), a fellow vacationer, she convinces him to travel outside the grounds, to a secluded beach, where Gabi and her husband, Alban (Jalil Lespert), say they have been many times before. An incident occurs, and the authorities employ a very unusual proposition for their country’s guests to help everyone avoid trouble. It lights a fire in James that he would never discovered otherwise. In a sentence, we’re dealing with human cloning, peoples. Infinity Pool is written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg.
Dutch angles and whirling cameras just make everything cooler. Ominous music can set a scene even when nothing unusual is happening. If I hadn’t seen a trailer for this movie, I wouldn’t have had a clue where this movie was going, and maybe even what genre we were in, for a very long time. Infinity Pool is patient, and never really interested in explaining the implications of its own story – I like that, but I’m also going to challenge that, and have a go of exploring it all right now 😇 After accidentally killing a local, James is coerced into paying for human cloning, as a means of personally escaping the death penalty – this way, the locals still get their pound of flesh, the authorities get rich off the process, and James gets to keep on living. It awakens James in so as far as Gabi says, is noticeable in the eyes. Could it be from the fact that any and all crimes are now seen as a misdemeanor, with the deterrent of death or a lengthy prison sentence simply off the table? I say no, but thank-you for trying. I think it’s more the act of James seeing himself punished for sin, freeing himself from it, and seeing himself die, separating him from himself – it allows James to consequentially think and act in the absence of oneself. Due to this, Infinity Pool has a fascinating premise and a riveting investigation into humanity; and one, like Gabi suggests, implores with a sort’ve innate understanding, working without the descriptives being brought into consciousness. Ah, but then here I am, being ‘that guy’.
What’s just as fascinating is how Gabi feels she knows how to bring James back down to Earth. Her words indicate that this is a ritual that she and her friends often partake, to while away the hours on holiday. As a movie, Infinity Pool can be monotone in parts, with swift shifts in development adding further questions to an expanding adventure. A big question becomes, how many clones of James are in play – does it matter if the original is punished for the crime, or the copy? Again, no, it doesn’t. Yet it is through seeing himself beaten, by James and unbeknownst to James, that adds a personal responsibility back to himself once again. Then killing himself, as a deranged dog, definitely does seem to complete the mission – Gabi cradles James as a newborn, supposedly concluding the existential journey, that has taken James out-of-body and back again. Gabi and her cohort have had this all planned out – they know how to unleash a man, which is a gift unto itself, and they know how to put him back, which becomes this story’s real phenomenon. I still wonder what to make of the fact that James doesn’t go home, staying at the resort alone through the rainy season – I take it to mean he has no home to go to, for the most he’s ever felt alive is at that holiday resort. But maybe, he’s in trauma, or he has revenge on his mind for next season… I just think since James has been reborn here in Li Tolqa, returning home for him may mean also staying at the resort.
Infinity Pool has also got me wondering what would’ve been different if Em had been the one to run over the local, and forced to double herself. I think if Em was the one able to escape herself and her daddy issues, then she would’ve shedded herself of James on the spot. In the movie, James knows his new feelings and new friends are wicked, trying to reach out to Em at the last minute before she leaves, which is shown mockingly in a drug-induced dream later on; but I feel Gabi’s manipulation only sends James spiraling so far due to a freedom from his own inadequacy; as a writer, and perhaps a sunken resentment that he knows his marriage is a sham. Yet, a character like Em may not have had the same deficiencies to facilitate a fall so far off center. It’s interesting.
Mia Goff has done it again 👏 At first, I noticed it’s like she’s playing daffy above her age – although I’ve learned my lesson not to question such things until the movie has fully played out for me to see if there’s anything I’m missing (hello, No One Will Save You). Then, ultimately, Goff is really balancing three characters – the affluent holidayer, the awoken seductress, and the unhinged invincible – and she clenches her fists tightly around them all to squash them into one. But is this weird – I find Goff to have such a special tone and British accent that I might prefer her performances in Pearl and X just based on that, where an American accent helps her disappear further into a role. Then again, I really want to rewatch Emma. now, since Goff has come into her own, because I always thought she was particularly brilliant there, and British. I also simply continue to admire her dare. And I also think Alexander Skarsgård is a really interesting actor too, who can portray both strength and weakness, sometimes in the same moments – which is why he is so perfect for many of his roles, and can display similar sensibilities here.
Infinity Pool is a movie that doesn’t have many of those high-octane adrenaline moments, but a smooth and rich philosophical drive has made this review a whole lot of fun to write. I have a feeling Infinity Pool is going to continue to grow on me, and I may be kicking myself in December when it doesn’t qualify for my top 10 movies of the year. I haven’t even mentioned the repulsive facemasks – gimmicky or keenly metaphoric, depending on where you want to put your energies. But I love movies like this; ones that are chill to do their thing and leave you with a mental rusk to gnaw on for upcoming weeks.
4.0
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