David Cronenberg has returned to his now-familiar Ballardian obsessions with his new picture, a deformed sphinx without a secret that is an eroticized necrophiliac rumination on grief, love, and loss. It’s a compelling and draining blend of science fiction conspiracy thriller and quasi-murder mystery, complete with doppelgänger sex drama and a close call with the exact xenophobia it claims to be satirising. A crucially significant doctor who was possibly having an affair with the hero’s deceased wife and who had also been her first sexual partner as a teenager is included in the convoluted plot, despite the fact that she is never seen on screen.
Despite this, the film has its own eerie, engulfing mauseoleum aura of unease, which is enhanced by Howard Shore’s startling electronic soundtrack. In the present or near future, we are in Toronto, where a wealthy and fashionable widower named Karsh (Vincent Cassel) founded a restaurant with an attached cemetery. This state-of-the-art burial facility allows people to bury their loved ones with a new “shroud,” which has thousands of tiny cameras that record and transmit 8K pictures of the body’s decay in real time, which you can view on your smartphone.
It goes without saying that Karsh is uploading photos of his late wife Becca (Diane Kruger), who passed away following an excruciatingly agonising battle with metastatic breast cancer. In addition to having a strange AI avatar named Honey (who speaks like Becca) on his computer system, Karsh is also friends with Terri (Diane Kruger), Becca’s identical twin sister, who was formerly married to the crazy, hysterical IT engineer Maury (Guy Pearce). However, Karsh believes Chinese government participation because the Chinese invested in the relevant technology when the cemetery is vandalised and its information is compromised. Maury might also be a suspect, as could the oncologist-turned-possible-lover-turned-former-boyfriend of his late wife, who now resides in Iceland—which just so happens to be the epicentre of an eco-protest movement that could potentially be linked to the attack. In addition to his shady relationship with Terri, Karsh is also seeing a stunning, blind woman and frequently experiences sultry dreams and kink-hallucinations of Becca in her different post-op stages.
What direction is it all going? Perhaps nowhere at all, but if that’s the point, then where does it lead? It’s possible that we may always be burdened by sadness, love, desire, and the frail body itself. We may also always harbour the hope that something will end and that there will always be purpose. The film is delivered with unwavering conviction and wide-eyed gravity, although it has less errant comedy than much of Cronenberg’s work. There are startling moments—I jumped out of my seat when I felt a hip bone crack—as well as a tired fatalism. Maybe the film struggles to breathe because of the shrouds themselves.
