WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? (INFINITY POOL)
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Fresh from her outlandishly chilling work with Ti West on 'X' and 'Pearl,' she totally steals the show in writer-director Brandon Cronenberg's discombobulating sci-fi horror movie 'Infinity Pool'.
Cronenberg's film begins conventionally with Alexander Skarsgard's struggling novelist James Forster and his young socialite wife, Cleopatra Coleman's Em vacationing in a fictional country called Li Tolqa on a gated island resort.
Their peace and quiet is disturbed, however, when a protest takes place on the resort's beach with a masked man driving his bike aggressively at tourists.
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During the commotion, James encounters Mia Goth's Gabi who surprises him by saying she knows who he is and is a fan of his only novel - a novel which didn't sell very well.
Flattered by her praise, James accepts Gabi's invitation for Em and him to join her and her husband Jalil Lespert's Alban for dinner.
During the meal in an odd Asian fusion restaurant, we sense some of the stresses and strains in Em and James' marriage.
While Gabi flirts with James, we learn critics were unkind about his book, noting he was married to the publisher's daughter.
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Despite Em's reservations, the couples agree to meet up the following day for an excursion outside the resort - even though guests have been warned to stay inside for their own safety.
Alban and Gabi, who have holidayed on the island many times, hire a car and drive them to a beach where the younger woman makes a sexual advance at James when he goes for a pee.
After a day of eating, drinking and sunbathing, an inebriated James offers to drive them back to the resort.
However on the drive he knocks down a local, killing him.
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They decide to flee the scene after Gabi argues against them calling the Li Tolqa police on the basis that they are untrustworthy and corrupt.
Returning to the resort, James and Em are arrested the following morning.
During questioning, James is told by Thomas Kretschmann's Detective Thresh that the punishment for a fatal hit and run is execution at the hands of the victim's first born son.
However for a fee, execution can be avoided by cloning yourself, with James' specially created doppelganger being killed instead.
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James agrees but as part of the deal he and Em must also watch the clone's execution.
While Em is repulsed by what she sees and wants to leave the island, James is fascinated by the concept of cloning doppelgangers to avoid punishment .
Unable to locate his passport, he extends his stay by a week and realises Gabi and Alban have undergone the same cloning process after falling foul of the law on previous holidays.
The couple introduce him to Amanda Brugel's Jennifer, Caroline Boulton's Bex, Jeffrey Ricketts' Charles and John Ralston's Dr Bob Modan - other Western tourists who have committed crimes and undergone cloned executions.
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What's more, like James, they have been thrilled by the experience and they goad him into committing more crimes.
Are Gabi, Alban and their friends seeking a genuine partner in crime?
Or are they actually ridiculing him as he goes off the rails?
Like his father David, Brandon Cronenberg clearly has a taste for warped, hyper violent stories that veer into the macabre and the surreal.
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His film raises awkward questions about modern morality.
Indeed some viewers will be struck by the way it chronicles the appalling excesses of the filthy rich with the same giddy bitterness that Reuben Ostlund exhibited in 'Triangle of Sadness'.
Others will recall Mike White's much sharper puncturing of upper class mores in two superb seasons of the HBO luxury resort drama 'The White Lotus'.
While the film easily reaches the heights of Ostlund's Palme d'Or winner, it doesn't quite hit the satirical depths of White's TV show.
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Some viewers may be disturbed by the casual dismissal of the locals in Cronenberg's narrative, painting them as a corrupt, savage people.
Yet despite this, the film remains a fascinating reflection on how humans act in the absence of any moral code or commitment to a process of crime and punishment.
It all makes for a grimly fascinating watch, thanks to Cronenberg's deployment of surreal and grotesque imagery with the help of Karim Hussain's cinematography and Andy Robinson's visual effects.
While most contemporaries churn out Marvel, DC Comics and 'Star Wars' franchise movies and shows, Skarsgard again commendably eschews conventional movies for a more challenging role.
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He embraces James' vanity and gullibility as he is easily manipulated by Goth's femme fatale and quickly loses his moral compass.
Lespert, Kretschmann, Brugel, Boulton, Ricketts and Ralston contribute to the film's weirdness, while Coleman does a decent job engaging the audience's sympathy.
The film, though, undeniably belongs to Goth who again demonstrates her considerable range - oscillating wildly from being charming and seductive to becoming goading, vindictive and truly terrifying.
Goth hits all these buttons with consummate skill and stakes a strong claim to be one of cinema's most interesting performers right now.
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She's the ace card in 'Infinity Pool' and Cronenberg knows it.
Thanks to both of them, 'Infinity Pool' is one of those films you will be thinking about for weeks afterwards.
How Goth and Cronenberg further develop their careers after this will be fascinating to witness.
('Infinity Pool' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on March 23, 2023)
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