James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are vacationing at a vacation resort in Li Tolqa (filmed in Croatia); James is a failed writer struggling to write a follow-up to his first book, Em comes from money; Their marriage isn't going that great.
After a startling, low-key violent incident with one of the locals they meet fellow tourists Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban (Jalil Lespert). Gabi comes on strong to James, having read and loved his novel. His ego stoked, James becomes a lot more social (to Em's resentment) and soon both couples are off on an unsanctioned visit to the countryside to sample the local sights.
It's a mild outing, except for the part when Gabi creeps up on James as he's taking a piss and gives him a handjob- complete with an on-screen (prosthetic) dick and money shot. As you'd expect from any of the Cronenbergs, it's a spectacularly unsexy sex scene and plays almost like body horror. It's a running theme, just like the resort is shot to be pretty much the opposite of paradisiacal. Camberley-esque, is I believe the word for that.
And then as James is driving the group back, he runs over and kills a local.
Things develop similarly to The Forgiven: they don't call the police and instead head back to the compound, but are found out anyways. Then the police show up and take them away.
It's a familiar nightmarish scenario for anyone who's been a tourist: guilt and the intrinsic fear of the foreign, compounded by multiple hints about local resentment and corruption, and the contrast between the resort and the impoverished countryside.
As it turns out, Li Tolqa has a very creative approach to justice. According to their legal system, manslaughter - even involuntary - is punishable by death, the execution to be carried out by the victim's next-of-kin.
But because tourism is one of the few ways the country has to make money, there's a way to get out. Li Tolqa happens to have the technology to build fully developed clones of people who share all their memories (shhh, just go along with it). So if a foreigner is willing to part with a lot of money to build one of these clones, he can have this clone be put to death as a surrogate. Oh, and he needs to witness the killing.
It's a major contrivance, but... well, that's what the movie's about. More importantly, it's a deeply but subtly horrific conceit at an existential level. Not for James, though; he's weirdly entranced by seeing his copy be brutally stabbed to death, while Em is horrified; another wedge between them. When they get back to the resort - effectively getting away with murder, James is inducted to a group of expats who've been indulging in the possibilities that Li Tolqa's cloning technology allow for years. And from there the movie spirals out in all sort of debauched, inventive, and bizarre tangents.
Infinity Pool is unnerving, grimly hilarious, enthralling and wince-inducing in equal measure. It's a weird, weird movie that's hard to get a handle on, which gives it a queasy power. This is strengthened by writer/director Brandon Cronenberg's careful, clinical direction, Karim Hussain's beautiful, washed-out cinematography, and a cool, pulsing, cacophonic score by Tim Hecker. Even the weird typography for the title card and credits.
Skarsgård gives his character's bizarre arc a lot of heft - getting over self loathing through self-murdering, only to later have his ego crushed in a way that gave me sympathy for a very closed-off, unsympathetic character; the guy specializes in recklessly brave, vanity-less performances, and this is a memorable one. But he's outshone by Mia Goth often in full-on crazy mode, playing a wonderful role that evolves through the movie, always emerging in a weirder shape than before. Funny, terrifying and terrifyingly sexy in equal measure - between this and Pearl, she should win all the actor awards this year. All of them.
I think I love it? I'm not sure, I'm still digesting it - there's a lot to unpack in this movie, tons of interesting stuff going on beneath the tourists run amok surface reading. Ask me again later.
But yeah, I'm pretty sure I love it.
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