‘Infinity Pool’ stars on the bonkers X-rated scenes that shocked Sundance
Written by on January 27, 2023
Like father, like son. Last summer, Canadian horror auteur David Cronenberg shocked Cannes Film Festival audiences with his latest freaky fantasy, Crimes of the Future. Now his son, Brandon Cronenberg, has gone and shocked the Sundance crowd with his bleak and bloody dark comedy, Infinity Pool, which premiered at the festival earlier this week ahead of its Jan. 27 theatrical debut. Set at a high-end resort in an impoverished fictional country, the movie features graphic sex scenes, surreal sci-fi imagery and unnerving acts of violence that left even its stars — Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth — shaken, rattled and rolled.
“It was pretty shocking,” Goth tells Yahoo Entertainment of her immediate reaction after reading Cronenberg’s script. “There are tons of scenes in there where I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness! This is pretty out there.’ But by the time you get to set, it’s more thrilling than anything. There’s so much planning that takes place, so when you’re actually shooting those scenes it’s a lot of fun.”
“It kind of shocked me the first time I read it,” adds Skarsgård. “It’s very rare to read something that is so out there and original. And the journey that my character goes on is just so bananas! It’s refreshing to do something that is crazy, out there and wild. Also, Brandon is genuinely the nicest human being on the planet. Even when you’re shooting all these crazy, wild, violent scenes and orgies, when you step onto set you feel like it’s filled with friends, and that energy makes it much easier. It’s just a safe environment.”
It’s worth nothing that the version of Infinity Pool that general audiences will see this weekend isn’t the same version that left Sundance crowds gasping. The film’s distributor, Neon, is releasing an R-rated cut that omits some of the more explicit sequences, including one already-notorious X-rated shot that will only be on display in the yet-to-be-released director’s cut. Asked whether hardcore horror fans should hold out for the uncut experience, Goth encourages everyone to take the plunge on the R-rated version.
“The differences between the two [cuts] are very minor,” she explains. “Brandon was able to edit it in such a way that regardless of which version you’re watching, you’re still going to get the full experience out of it.”
Already Twitter’s reigning Scream Queen after the one-two punch of Ti West’s X and Pearl last year, Infinity Pool awards the chameleon-like Goth the chance to dive deep into a dramatically different character. The actress plays Gabi, a vacationing model who befriends Skarsgård’s struggling novelist, James Foster, who is desperately hoping this trip will recharge his creative batteries. Instead, he ends up in deep trouble with local authorities after causing a fatal hit-and-run accident that demands a unique form of corporal punishment: getting cloned and then being forced to watch as that clone is executed for the original’s crime.
After James’s first trip through this twisted justice system, he inevitably learns that the seemingly naive Gabi is, in fact, a lot more sinister. Drafted into her elite group of fellow cloned criminals, he loses all sight of finishing his novel in favor of her crazy brand of hedonism. And Goth says that Gabi “manipulated” her as much as she manipulates James.
“She was a real gift to play,” Goth raves. “She’s so unapologetic in who she is and so far removed from who I am in my day-to-day that it was actually quite refreshing and freeing. I thought she was presenting herself in one way, and then by the time I got to the end of the script, she surprised me and I was really quite impressed by her.”
Goth is also impressed by the digital afterlife that her title character in Pearl continues to have online. In the run-up to the Oscar nominations this week, Pearl memes were all over Twitter as horror fans appeared to attempt their own version of Andrea Riseborough’s successful word-of-mouth Best Actress campaign. Unfortunately, Goth didn’t make the final cut, and the actress has already noted that “a change is necessary” if horror movies are ever going to be taken seriously by Oscar voters.
“It’s amazing,” Goth says of the continued fandom surrounding her Pearl alter ego. “I was involved with that project from its very conception when all we had was an idea for the movie. I helped to write the script and then produced it, and really saw it all the way through. So the fact that it’s still being received that way is very special.”
Besides continuing Goth’s recent run of instantly meme-able movies, Infinity Pool also joins the fresh wave of dark satires that take aim at the rich and powerful — think of recent hits like The White Lotus, The Menu and newly minted Best Picture nominee, Triangle of Sadness. “There’s definitely an element of that,” confirms Skarsgård. “These very rich tourists are in this sheltered little bubble acting with impunity and going crazy. There are a lot of shows and movies addressing that right now.”
“But it’s also not strictly an ‘eat the rich’ narrative,” The Northman star continues. “What attracted me to it was the psychology behind James and his journey. What is it like to be confronted by your own mortality and literally watch your own execution? What does that mean? What would you go through? To be honest, I found that more interesting than the ‘eat the rich’ aspect of it.”
Infinity Pool is playing in theaters now.
