Infinity Pool

Directed by Brandon Cronenberg, Infinity Pool follows an American couple (Alexander Skarsgård’s James and Cleopatra Coleman’s Em) as they’re drawn into a bizarre scheme alongside other tourists, including Mia Goth’s Gabi, during a vacation overseas. There’s little doubt, ultimately, that Infinity Pool fares best in its relatively entertaining and promising opening stretch, as Cronenberg, armed with his own screenplay, does a decent job of initially luring the viewer into a narrative that contains little in the way of predictable elements – with the watchable vibe heightened by the engaging, affable efforts of its various performers. (This is despite the fact that large swaths of dialogue are obscured by frustratingly heavy accents and mumbled, whispered delivery.) It’s clear, then, that Infinity Pool‘s steady descent into irrelevance is triggered by a meandering midsection that contains few, if any, compelling or interesting attributes, as Cronenberg’s less-than-subtle sensibilities pave the way for a momentum-free second half in which the characters’ motivations remain murky (to say the least) – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by the filmmaker’s reliance on eye-rollingly oddball encounters and episodes (eg a psychedelic sex scene that just feels endless). By the time the laughably nonsensical final stretch rolls around, Infinity Pool has cemented its place as a mostly worthless (and unreasonably heavy-handed) satire that squanders a decent premise and stellar performances. (Goth’s go-for-broke turn is something to behold, certainly.)

* out of ****