I mean, sure, obscenely rich white assholes do make for appropriately contemporary horror movie villains.
James Foster is a struggling American writer who married well, on vacation with his wife in the type of foreign country that caters to the needs of tourists in posh resorts while impoverished citizens struggle to get by right outside of the secure gates. They befriend another couple who are blowing off some steam at the resort, and end up in a fatal car accident that results in the death of a local farmer. The country’s government has a draconian approach to crime and punishment, which puts Foster in peril. Luckily for him, they also have a science-fiction loophole for those who are willing to line the coffers of the authorities. I’ll avoid any more specifics for those of you interested in checking Infinity Pool out, but suffice to say that the film endeavors to use its high concept plot device as a means to explore the way that perverse wealth can lead to hedonism and entitlement, particularly in the high-class tourism trade.
I came into Infinity Pool with pretty high expectations. It is directed by a Cronenberg (Brian, son of the mastermind behind The Fly and Videodrome) and it features two of my favorite working actors, Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgard. It also has a pretty good critical reputation, and so the film made my early list of must-see horror flicks of the year. Unfortunately, I found it to be a severely discomforting and ultimately hollow experience. While I can’t really fault the performances in the film, I didn’t find any of the characters appealing or entertaining at all. I know that wasn’t the point, but if I can’t sympathize with the protagonists, or relate at all to their impulses, then it is going to be really hard to get invested in the particular degradations that they are subjected, and subject each other, to. What’s left is purely spectacle, and I didn’t find much insight to be gleaned from the exploration of this story. Even as a spectacle, it fails to clear the bar as a worthwhile investment of time. The film aims for a lot of hallucinatory imagery, but I found those sequences dreary and unimaginative, pretty much the opposite of what Cronenberg would likely want to achieve. The scenes are modestly successful at making the viewer uneasy, and I do think that the directing is technically very competent overall, but it simply doesn’t make me feel anything but mildly icky.
The biggest challenge I had with the movie, I think, is one of perspective. With a series like White Lotus, which tackles many similar themes, we spend just as much time with the locals and resort staff as we do with the self-absorbed guests. That broader focus allows us to experience the impact that the guests’ bad behavior has on people outside of their insular bubbles, and results in a much more balanced and successful commentary. Infinity Pool, on the other hand, is just as singularly focused on the experiences of its wealthy protagonists/antagonists as those characters are themselves, and all of that impact is glossed over like the collateral damage of a superhero movie. I was completely incapable of connecting to the motivations of anyone in the film, and so an outside perspective would have been more than welcome. It is also a lot to ask of an audience to spend so much uninterrupted time with so many unlikeable characters doing exclusively awful things, and then spare only a cursory acknowledgment of all the less fortunate people whose lives are made worse by their actions.
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