What does it mean to lose touch with your humanity? Does it mean becoming cruel and leaving behind any compassion? Did you even really have any moral characteristics to begin with or was it just an act that would fall apart when you got the first taste of something different? These are the questions that are posed in writer-directorBrandon Cronenberg’sInfinity Poolwhich, rather definitively, provides a series of increasingly bleak and brutal answers to each one of them. Similar in many ways to his previous film, 2020’sPossessor, it is a hallucinogenic meditation on violence and the parts of ourselves that we lose when we become bathed in the blood of those we destroy. Its central characters, rather than be repulsed by this, become drawn to getting more and more for them to consume.
Infinity Pool
James and Em Foster are enjoying an all-inclusive beach vacation in the fictional island of La Tolqa, when a fatal accident exposes the resort’s perverse subculture of hedonistic tourism, reckless violence and surreal horrors.
What the Hell Is ‘Infinity Pool’ About?
This all begins and ends with the struggling writer James (Alexander Skarsgård) who is on a trip with his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman)to a fictional resort in Eastern Europe. He is there seeking inspiration as he hasn’t written a book in years. Though he certainly finds it,none of it is in the way he expected.The troubles begin when he encounters Gabi (Mia Goth) who invites James and his wife to accompany her on a trip with her husband outside the resort. She sufficiently strokes his ego by saying how much she likes his book to make him overlook any potential concerns. On the way back from the trip, James offers to drive as everyone else is either tired or drunk. He subsequently accidentally hits a farmer with the car and kills him before fleeing. The next day, he is arrested and told he will be executed. However,he can pay tohave a double createdto take his place.The only thing is that he and Em will have to watch the execution. Where she is horrified, James is mesmerizing by this moment. When they go back to the hotel, and she desperately wants to leave, he can’t seem to find his passport. We later learnthis was a facade and James actually hid it, so he would have an excuse to stay.
He then joins Gabi and her merrygroup of wealthy murdererswho all terrorize the vacation destinationwith the knowledge that they will never be held accountable.We witness them all applauding and cheering as their doubles are executed at the same time. It is all a game where they can be as violent and depraved as they want. Their wealth grants them the power to do anything to anyone. We see James is intoxicated with this new life. Once Em leaves to get away from it all,he becomes even worse than he ever was before.
That is, until he is tricked into beating up and nearly killing a double of himself with his own two hands. Initially,this is a line that he will not cross, and he tries to flee from the rest of the group. This proves to be futile when Gabi tracks him down and gets him to brutally murder his double by smashing his head in. When she and then everyone else leave on their respective flights,James turns back to stay behind at the vacated resortwith the rain pouring down.He has been forever changed, and can no longer return home. After all he has discovered of himself,James would rather be alone with the worst parts of who has becomethan be anywhere else.
Life WIthout Consequences For the Rich
Similar to howPossessorended with a character realizing they no longer had any connection to their past selves due to the corrupting power of violence,Infinity Poolsees Cronenberg adding a layer to his thesisby showing how it is the richwho indulge in thiswithout consequence. They are all the true “animals” that they keep referring to everyone else as. What distinguishes James from Gabi and everyone else is that, while he initially tries to flee,he’s incapable of shedding this version of himself.His only hesitation came from him not wanting to get his hands dirty by harming a person that closely resembled himself. It was not compassion that gave him pause.Rather, it was hubris.James never had any qualms that prevented him from hurting others, meaning that the extra step of killing his doublewas merely an acknowledgment of his true nature.
For others, it was aboutletting off steam so that they could go back to their lives of decadence.All of them are sickening, but James is the one who becomes most corrupted by it. The fact that he didn’t come from wealth and was instead living off of Em’s family money makes this even more unsettling as it showsanyone is capable of getting lost to the darkness. James has been reborn in gore and violence, down to him even nursing off Gabi’s breast, which iscovered in the blood of his doublehe had just destroyed. When we see him sitting alone in the rain in the final shot, there is a possibility that Cronenberg is trying to hint thathe may be actually desperately attempting to cleanse himselfof all that he has done up until now.
This potentially redemptive idea is compromised by the place which he goes back to. Rather than going home, he has returned to the location where whatever soul or humanity he had was lost. No matter how much he tries,there is no “getting clean,” ashe is more like the rich monstersthan he would have ever wanted to admit. For all the ways he believed himself to be a good person, James was capable of cruelty beyond measure. All it took was a little push.
Infinity Poolis currently streaming on Hulu in the U.S.
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