Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future Review
A sci-fi noir that offers a Cronenbergian greatest hits of sexual (and surgical) subversion
The idea that David Cronenberg is returning to theaters with his first movie in eight year is pretty exiting, but also, his return to his proverbial “body horror” for the first time since 1999’s eXistenZ makes me quite happy that you won’t have to be at Cannes to see the movie since it will be released in just over two weeks.
The movie takes place in a future where the human body has evolved to the point where pain and infection are no longer factors, so humans have begun to seek out new surgical thrills. Frequent Cronenberg collaborator Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser, who along with his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), are performance artists. His body grows new forms of organs and tumors that Catrice surgically removes in front of an admiring audience, which might sound like a strange form of performance art, but they have many fans and even a few groupies from their work together.
One of the latter is Kristen Stewart’s Timlin, who works at the National Organ Registry, whose role is to document organs like the ones Saul grows. There are a few other characters the couple interact with, but mostly Saul, including Scott Speedman, an idealistic drug entrepreneur, who wants the couple to perform an autopsy on his dead son at a show. While much of what is happening is legal, there’s a thin line, and “New Vice” decides on what needs to be policed.
While Crimes won’t be for everyone, few people who see it will have any doubts that it’s a Cronenberg film, although personally, I’ve never seen his previous 1970 film with the same title to know if there’s any connection. The thing is that Crimes is not really a horror movie persé. Some of the surgery sequences might make a few people squeamish, but it’s only horror in the sense of how scary it is seeing another potential vision of the future coming from the mind of Cronenberg.
It certainly feels like Cronenberg has a lot to say with his first truly fantastical film in decades, especially since his influence has never been felt more than in recent years with films like Titane, last week’s Men, and his son Brandon’s own film, Possessor. Crimes seems to as much be his commentary on what people perceive as art, as it is about sex and the extremes of cosmetic surgery. In that sense, it makes this a great companion to last year’s Candyman requel, even if I feel the need to repeat that it’s not really “horror” in that sense.
As far as the surgery aspects of the film, there are plenty of odd organic contraptions to help humans contend with the seemingly alien organs growing inside them and the art involved with displaying them. Some of Cronenberg’s ideas about how the human body might evolve aligns with some of my own beliefs, although Cronenberg takes this idea to the furthest extreme. (Without getting into heavy spoilers, Cronenberg pays homage to himself with throwbacks to ideas explored in Dead Ringers, Crash, and even The Fly, but it also explores sex in a similar way as all three movies did.)
Crimes is not a pretty movie, as the world has taken on a rather grungy sheen, but the movie also has a very specific and moody tone embellished by an equally fantastic and unique Howard Shore score that integrates well with various odd and often disconcerting sound effects. Mortensen gives a suitably staid performance as Saul, and Seydoux is as fantastic as she usually is, although Kristen Stewart brings so many tics and such quirkiness to her character, it’s a little jarring at times.
One of my only other major issues with Crimes is that its sudden ending literally leaves you wanting more, since so many questions are left unresolved. Other than that, it’s the kind of movie that could only have come from the brain of Cronenberg, and those who go into the movie with that in mind will probably have a better time with Crimes of the Future than those going in expecting anything else.
Rating: 7.5/10
Crimes of the Future hits theaters nationwide on Friday, June 6.