Infinity Pool (Brandon Cronenberg, 2023) (Patreon)

Let's Go Brandon! In terms of evocation of mood, inarticulate menace, and a batshit approach to visuals and sound design, Cronenberg fils has it going on. Even the end titles bear an unmistakable Godardian stamp, retrofitted for the vaguely bureaucratic atmosphere of much of the film. Infinity Pool looks and sounds great, but it's signifying less than nothing. The primary conceit -- that in an imaginary country in the Global South, the wealthy are able to buy exact human duplicates of themselves -- plays like an idea Brandon's dad would have rejected as too on-the-nose. 

The stoic Hollow Man at the center of Infinity Pool is failed writer James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård, who himself seems like a duplicate for David's frequent avatar, Viggo Mortensen). Like many losers before him, he as gone to a foreign country to find "inspiration," and instead finds brutality and lawlessness. Of course, the ideological "twist" in Infinity Pool is pretty blunt indeed. Rich folks at the resort where James and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are staying continually refer to the savagery of the locals; that is, outside the barbed wire fences of the upscale compound, it's what Trump would call a "shithole country." Surprise! It's the Western tourists who are the real animals, having found a loophole that permits them to rape, pillage, and murder with impunity. (Send in the clones!)

I know there is a big Mia Goth fan club among today's cinephiles, and while I don't necessarily mind her, neither am I enthralled. But she does much of the dramatic heavy lifting here as a sexed-up femme fatale who cons James into thinking he is a true member of their post-colonial crime circle, only to treat him as a subhuman plaything. Of course, he may in fact not be entirely human, since the obvious question -- what if they kill you and spare your clone by mistake -- is addressed out loud.

The most frustrating thing about Infinity Pool is that its themes of bioethics and First-World exploitation are really just a backdrop. Not to say they would have been interesting had they been explored further. From a script standpoint, Brandon C. is not a deep thinker. But it's as if these ideas (that admittedly seem borrowed from dad like a sportscar) are there to make Infinity Pool seem more intelligent than it is. What the film does harp on ad nauseum -- the nature of masculinity, and why James is not a "real man" -- is tedious, almost intentionally stupid. Alas, in the Nepo Baby sweepstakes, this director probably falls somewhere between Sofia Coppola and Dave Franco, though it's still too soon to tell.