Luxury is scary. What better object displays vulgar wealth than an infinity pool?
Infinity Pool (2023, Brandon Cronenberg) is a tedious, shallow, barrage of redundant horror cliches that looks stylish—although is it? Like the macro photography dialogue scenes. Are extreme close-ups of an eye or a mouth back and forth while 2 people talk really that innovative, or is there even a reason?
Does this movie sound awful? It’s rubbish. And that’s when it gets good. Infinity Pool is a psychological horror film that satirizes dilettantes. The whole thing amounts to some cynical irony like an upscale art gallery full of rich people attending an exhibition with no art to be found.
The story really begins when the character Alexander Skarsgård plays and the one played by Mia Goth meet. He, a writer and she, an actress, both identify themselves as working in creative professions, despite both being devoid of any discernable talent. And that’s why most of the time this movie feels obnoxious and like it lacks any sense of artistry that would give it merit. Unless you realize that’s the point.
Because the Skarsgård character deliberately sought after being a part of this group (and that disavows him of being entirely coerced into it), this moral structure whereby the story elements having to do with the doubling device as a means to confronting his true self (his worst traits) subsequently leads finally to allowing us to have sympathy for him. And the veracity of this is what makes it haunting.
1/26/2023 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA
DCP
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