Who knew Brandon Cronenberg’s feature-length bonus episode of The White Lotus — aka Infinity Pool — would get so weird? Probably most us familiar with the director’s father. After all, the fleshy apple doesn’t fall far from the mind-warping tree. Brandon’s last film, the 2020 sleeper hit Possessor, more than proved it. But his balancing act of striking imagery, purposeful violence and a compelling conflict starts to teeter in the sands of this sunny vacation.
Alexander Skarsgård (The Northman) plays James Foster, a one-trick novelist who can’t find a thrill at a beachside resort in Latoka, an ambiguous country featuring a festival of stereotypes. While his wife (Cleopatra Coleman, Fear Clinic) begs for any reaction beyond disconnected grunts, James is drawn to Gabi (Mia Goth, Pearl), a British actress and his writing’s “No. 1” fan. After plowing over an unassuming farmer following a drunken picnic outside the resort, Lakota’s authorities deliver a simple punishment: execution.
But Lakota enjoys tourists. Specifically, the stupid-rich kind. For a fee, any foreigner on death row can infinity-clone themselves to endure as many deaths as possible — hence, Gabi and her gang of insufferable “zombies.” Yet the more James destroys himself, the more the island paradise morphs into purgatory.
Infinity Pool’s effects and snap editing are great in the cloning sequences, but they soon wane as film stalls at its halfway mark. This was a fantastic way to illustrate the (literally) internal struggle of Possessor, but it was also used sparingly. Cronenberg lacks that refrain here — maybe because he didn’t have much of a story to fill it with. That’s not to say the ideas he proposes aren’t intriguing or worthwhile; he just spends so much time identifying them without saying anything deeper. It’s excruciating similar to how Alex Garland approached toxic masculinity — one of this film’s many subjects — in 2022’s Men.
Perhaps by accident, Infinity Pool also follows last year’s trilogy of eat-the-wealthy flicks, including Glass Onion, Triangle of Sadness and The Menu. The film feels imitative in the wake of these, all the way down to the “consensual cuckoldry.” It definitely has the most interesting sex scene — an orgy that feels like it was pulled from Phil Tippett’s Mad God — but that does little to make up for the movie’s weaknesses.
What the film has in spades, however, is an unhinged Goth. Her part alone carries the overarching insanity. Gabi is as much of a siren and nurturer as she is a sadistic matriarch. Goth is perfectly cast, and the image of her cradling an infantile Skarsgård might be Infinity Pool’s most telling frame.
The movie isn’t an utter misfire, but it is a disappointing mark on li’l Cronenberg’s otherwise spotless filmography. Maybe the extra creamy NC-17 cut will fix that. Maybe. —Daniel Bokemper