Infinity Pool (2023) Dir: Brandon Cronenberg

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Although I ultimately missed it in theatres, this had been one of my most highly anticipated films of 2023. It was directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of legendary horror filmmaker David Cronenberg. Now, with that name comes a degree of privilege, yes, but also a great deal of expectation, fairly or not. I had relatively high expectations for this horror, albeit mainly due to its general critical reception.

I found a good deal of the cinematography to be quite pretty, particularly the more dreamlike, trippy sequences, which utilised colour, focusing, and cuts in a very interesting way. I wished the film used these techniques more, but, unfortunately, it was barely used. I felt like, if the idea was to go the weird and trippy route, then the filmmakers should have gone all-in, instead of half-in.

This film's narrative and main themes were essentially an identity crisis in film form. It was, intriguingly enough, a criticism of nepotism, and indeed privilege, from a relatively privileged nepo-baby. The success of this critique was very mixed, with some of it coming across awfully on-the-nose, and other parts even a little nonsensical. The story seemed unsure of how to end itself, and, ultimately, tapered off into a rather disappointing anticlimax.

Alexander Skarsgård had elements of great acting within his performance, but failed to be as consistently strong as I had hoped. I thought that he went too big in some scenes, and too small in others. It was a weird performance, and not weird in the way the film was weird. I really wanted to like Skarsgård's acting more than I did, but it just wasn't quite what I was hoping for.

Mia Goth was typically excellent at being a mysterious and extremely unhinged lady of horror. She really has the science of it down to a tee. Her character's writing wasn't always stellar, but Goth's ability to make anything she did seem deranged in the most natural way possible, allowed her to get away with pretty much any pitfall of the writing.

Cleopatra Coleman and Jalil Lespert were the only other cast members significant enough, in both screentime and performance quality, to mention. I thought Coleman was great value for her relatively limited minutes, while Lespert was good in spurts, throughout the film.

Overall, this was a somewhat good film, which had the potential to be so much better than it ended up being. A better climax and ending would have made this a superb piece of modern horror, but, unfortunately, it didn't do either of those things well enough. Regardless, the rest of the film was very solid, and certainly provided some very interesting moments.