My husband and I have become recent fans of Mia Goth’s work, thanks to X and Pearl. When we saw she had a new movie coming out, Infinity Pool, we knew we wanted to see it. I don’t think we fully knew what we were in for. The plot description for this is long so buckle in.
James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) is a novelist, though the only book he has published was released six years ago. Unable to write another book, he goes on vacation to Latoka with his wife, Em (Cleopatra Coleman). The two are having relationship difficulties that worsen when James meets a fan named Gabi (Mia Goth) and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert). After dinner that night, the two couples decide to go on a seaside picnic the next day, even though tourists are forbidden from leaving the resort. They spend the day eating and drinking but, as James is driving the group back to the resort, he hits and kills a local farmer crossing the street. The punishment for the crime is death. However, the local detective makes a deal with James. For a large sum of money, they will create an identical clone of James. The clone will take the punishment while James goes back to his regular life, after watching the clone get murdered. Em is horrified by the whole thing and wants to go home. James has an opposite reaction and decides to stay. From here, James spends his time with Gabi, Alban, and their friends, who have all committed serious crimes on the island and have been cloned as a result. The debauchery continues until James can’t take any more. He tries to leave the group but they won’t allow it. Will he be able to get out or is he trapped in a life of crime forever?
Yeah. For those that don’t know, this is a movie directed and written by Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg. As such, Infinity Pool does have a lot of very disturbing scenes. There are drug-fueled orgies (which were apparently tamed in order to get the R rating), fairly graphic murders, and a lot of blood. It is very over the top.
Did I like it? There were a lot of things I liked. The clone issue is always an interesting plot device. Who is the “real” person and who is the clone? I also liked Gabi’s leadership of the group. Everything seemed to be her idea and everyone else was just following along, even though they also enjoyed what they were doing. I don’t think that we necessarily needed all of the weird visuals that sometimes made me difficult for me to understand what was happening but that is a typical Cronenberg trope. His dad does stuff like that and now he does too. It should be expected when you hear their name.
With that said, I don’t think I would recommend this movie to just anyone. It is a very specific type of person that enjoys Cronenberg movies. If you enjoy the trippy type of visuals and absolutely gore that comes with the family name, you might like this a lot. For me, I’m giving it a 3 out of 5.