Rating: R | Runtime: 117 minutes
Release Date: January 27th, 2023 (Canada/USA)
Studio: Elevation Pictures / Topic Studios / Neon
Director(s): Brandon Cronenberg
Writer(s): Brandon Cronenberg

You’re so frozen these days I can’t even tell if you’re sleeping or awake.

What happens when you give bored members of white high society carte blanche where their hedonistic and sadistic proclivities are concerned? They’ll graciously give their thanks with a sinister smile before wreaking havoc without a shred of remorse. Look at The Purge. Look at Hostel. This isn’t a novel concept.

Nor is the decision to use a member of that rarified air who doesn’t quite know what their proclivities are like Brandon Cronenberg’s author of zero note, James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård). Yes, he wears his apathy on his sleeve while letting his much more empathetic, publishing empire heiress wife (Cleopatra Coleman’s Em) foot the bill, but it’s not like James is craving blood. Not like the unhinged insanity visibly bubbling beneath the surface of their vacation friends Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban Bauer (Jalil Lespert). The question is whether he’ll need a push to start.

There’s a lot of promise with Infinity Pool to therefore mine James’ soul as he descends into the seemingly consequence-free lifestyle people like the Bauers adopt upon discovering a wild, unexplainable secret at the heart of island getaway La Tolqa’s lucrative tourist trap for the elite. Once James knows that he can kill, maim, and steal whoever and whatever he wants with nothing more than a modest dent in his bank account for the trouble, will he go whole hog?

Will he lose himself to the allure of power and control that he believes he lacks as a trophy husband beholden to his wife’s money? And what happens if his new friends decide to turn the table and make him a different kind of plaything that the impoverished natives of this fictionalized country can’t provide? The room for psychological and emotional upheaval is, pardon the pun, infinite. Let James slide into oblivion to see how he comes out while commenting on the state of the world’s yearning for excess.

Sadly, Cronenberg doesn’t seem interested in saying much at all. More than an exercise in calling out greed and perversion, the filmmaker uses his art to give it shape. He approaches the subject with a similar apathy as his characters—presenting a cesspool of drugs, sex, and violence from a position of complacency. Why punish the abusers? They won’t learn a lesson. Why punish the collaborators (see Thomas Kretschmann’s native police officer Thresh)? They’ll always exploit their position for an alternative revenue stream that keeps them from the squalor of their neighbors.

It’s not about giving James the ability to become an animal or the clarity to stop. It’s merely a glimpse behind the curtain of unadulterated psychopathy. Because it isn’t a switch that can be flipped. You either embrace the chaos or get consumed by it. So, while the ride might be fun, it’s a train going nowhere fast. Rather than envy or pity James, we simply shrug and move on.

---

Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth in INFINITY POOL; courtesy of NEON and Topic.