INFINITY POOL is a Hedonistic Descent into Vacation Goblin Mode

“Is this a dream?” Em (Cleopatra Coleman) asks. Back at their luxurious vacation resort in the far-flung fictional developing country La Tolqa, she can’t get over the most recent heinous encounter with local law enforcement involving her and her second-rate author husband James Foster (Alexander Skarsård). They have just killed a man, having struck him with their vehicle after a day of beach gayety. As is standard practice here, his punishment is as steep a price as they come. James is sentenced to die. However it isn’t actually James who is made to pay the ultimate price. He is wealthy and therefore inoculated from consequence. A clone will do just fine. Or as they are referred to in Brandon Cronenberg’s warped vacation thrillerInfinity Pool, a “double”.

Immediately disorienting, Infinity Pool begins in pure darkness as a couple mumble in their sleep. James and Em stir. The shades are drawn and they move into breakfast plans. The omelet station beckons. The camera begins to somersault, flipping and spinning and twisting, undoing our sense of stability, and upsetting stomaches just promised breakfast. An early through the looking glass moment designed to make the viewer dizzy and prepare them for the incoming descent down a hedonistic rabbit hole. When Em goes out for the morning, James meets Gabby (Mia Goth), his “biggest fan”. He’s charmed by her fandom and so accepts her and her husband Alban’s (Jalil Lespert) invitation to join them for dinner.

We learn that back home in LA, Gabby is a commercial actress, who her agent claims is a wonder at “failing naturally.” James, it is revealed, came to La Tolqa looking for inspiration. She serves it up in spades. The next morning, an innocuous retreat to an off-resort beach gets weird. Sexual tension flows like thin red wine. Then comes the accident. And the accompanying death sentence.

Cronenberg, borrowing a macabre fascination with body horror and violence from his old man, leans into the semantics of it all, world building a sense of chaotic order into this meditation on privilege and hierarchy. The doubling process foregoes scientific explanation and runs on pure vibe steam. Created with ooey practical sets and neon-crusted hallucinations, everything here is visceral and gross. And yet none of it is really treated with any real semblance of curiosity by the vacationers. They seem to accept their crime, and their cloning, and their execution like it’s a traffic ticket. Death flows freely on La Tolqa and in the jaded hearts of its vacationers.

One important aspect of the La Tolqa penal code? The accused must watch the execution of their double. James watches in horror, then amusement, as his double is stabbed to death by the first-born son of the man he ran down with his car. What should be an out-of-body hellscape becomes a curio. Much like his father, the younger Cronenberg is obsessed with the collision of the natural and unnatural world. Body horror and existentialism collide with questions about identity and truth. Who are we if not the reining champion of all other versions of ourself?

The film wisely asks the question that the audience wonders, “Do you worry that they killed the wrong man?” It doesn’t matter really. As James and company watch their doubles executed time and again, their mania and glee as witnesses grow, speaking to the fact that there is something freeing and euphoric about this experience. An excision of sorts. Maybe it’s the ability to play Tom Sawyer, watching over their own funeral. Or maybe nothing makes you feel more alive than watching yourself die. One important note – all of these vacationers, though rich, lack real accomplishment. They are themselves already husks, wrapped in wealth, failing naturally.

Goth and Skarsård are fantastic, complimenting one another wonderfully, underscoring the twisted, hedonistic turmoil that goes from low broil to full boil at the flip of a switch. She is equally an alluring siren and abusive banshee, bringing unbridled chaos energy and sexual verve to every scene. Unchecked id and Medea impulse. He is unhinged, pathetic, carnal, seduced. A child lost in the deep woods.

Cryptic and cold in one moment and then a red-hot, sexed-up neon fever dream, Infinity Pool is a thematic extension of and progression from Cronenberg’s earlier work, if not an improvement over his last film, the brilliantly provocative Possessor. The writer-director troubles himself with bold theses on the human experience and their relationship with themselves, power, and consequence, and refracts them through pure carnage and chaos. The chaos slips a bit beyond his grasp in a sloppy third act that loses quite a bit of steam but in combining the thrilling cult fascination of Ben Wheatley’s Kill List with White Lotus’ commentary on how vacationers are immune from consequence, Cronenberg has created a vacation hellscape not soon to be forgotten. One thing is certain: La Tolqa is not a must-visit destination.

CONCLUSION: Not for the faint of heart, ‘Infinity Pool’ continues writer-director Brandon Cronenberg’s familial fascination with humanity’s obsession with their own impermanence. In oft sickening fashion. Brash and bold and overindulgent, the film wrangles pure chaos to tell a saga about death and consequence or lack therefore. Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsård are terrific.