Infinity Pool

Grade: B

Mia Goth has no fear. Talk about an actress who will do anything, and isn’t afraid to go there. I enjoyed her in X and Pearl last year, and she is one of the stars of Infinity Pool, opening in theaters today. Her starring vehicles so far, though fun, aren’t exactly the kind that voters take seriously when it comes to awards season. If she were to get in some slightly more prestigious and upstanding projects, she would snag many well-earned awards and nominations. I have a feeling it will happen, as she gains momentum.

Infinity Pool is an impressive third feature film from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, son of director David Cronenberg (The Dead Zone, The Fly, eXistenZ). Our star is Alexander Skarsgård, who also comes from a talented family. He is a writer who, with his wife (Cleopatra Coleman), are vacationing at a resort in a fictional island called La Tolqa, in the hopes that this will get the Skarsgård character’s creative juices flowing again for another novel.

Some reviews have given away more than I will. I think you should go in cold, or knowing little. What I’ll say, and you can skip over this paragraph if you want to know nothing, is that cloning is involved. I’ll leave you to uncover the turn of events that led to it being necessary, but it raises some interesting questions that are brought up amongst the vacationers on La Tolqa. Since the new version of you comes with all your same memories, like a new iPhone with everything backed up, how would you know if you were the original you? What if YOU are the clone? Confusingly, throughout the movie, the characters call themselves “zombies,” even though they are likely the real deal and not the copy.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that, or the very end, but I am recommending Infinity Pool. It will take you down a dizzyingly deep rabbit hole, and it almost made me laugh at how increasingly disturbing it continued to get. There is violence, gore, nudity, trippy camera work, and graphic unsettling images. There’s a scene where someone relieves themself near the beach, and urine isn’t the only fluid we see hitting the ground in extreme close-up. I haven’t even gotten to how Mia Goth fits in to all of this, but let’s just say that once she shows up, you’ll get what the doctor ordered and much more. Infinity Pool has some of the most shocking, daring imagery I’ve seen in a movie. Just sit back and let it take you down.

Grade: B