It's comforting to know that David Cronenberg has managed to remain resolutely David Cronenberg for the past four or five decades now. Crimes Of The Future reminded me of two things. One, I have yet to watch the much earlier film from him that shares the same title (although everyone has pointed out that the two films are otherwise unconnected). Two, despite his filmography seeming to take him further away, at times, from his very specific mindset and worldview, he has never let go of firm beliefs that have helped to shape so many parts of his oeuvre.
Crimes Of The Future is set, to the surprise of nobody, in the future. People tend to interface even more directly with machines and computers, often using the kind of furniture and equipment that looks like a cross between something ergonomically designed and something created as a torture device. Humans don't really suffer from disease any more, and physical pain is largely a thing of the past. That leads to people seeking more and more ways to feel . . . something. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is one half of a performance art couple, partnered with Caprice (Léa Seydoux), and his special skill involves displaying his body while new organs grown inside him are removed. This is important, for the order of things that it threatens to unbalance, but it's also secondary to a plot that revolves around the potential next steps in human evolution, the ways in which people feel sexual thrills, and a mission to perform an autopsy on a dead child as a shocking work of performance art.
While full of great actors doing great work, Crimes Of The Future feels like Cronenberg being allowed to display and celebrate ideas that weren't allowed to be front and centre in his work years ago, despite always being there. He finally gets to craft something in which there's a beauty contest for the insides of the participants, something Cronenberg had a character state a longing for in the superb Dead Ringers, and there are ideas and images here that rank up there with the best of his work, although the movie, as a whole, suffers slightly if you compare it to his very best. But the very best films from Cronenberg are a very high bar to be measured against.
As well as Mortensen and Seydoux, who are both excellent in their roles, there's yet another great turn from Kristen Stewart, playing a nervy bureaucrat who seems star-struck by Mortensen's character, Tanaya Beatty and Nadia Litz make a strong impression in the few scenes they have, and you get solid performances from Don McKellar, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, and Lihi Kornowski, the latter three all connected to that aforementioned dead child.
I think it's obvious from the plot description here that you shouldn't choose to watch Crimes Of The Future if you're after something light and fun. Mind you, that applies to almost every David Cronenberg movie (as well as anything by his son, Brandon). This deserves your time though, and I encourage people to get themselves in the right headspace for it. It's thought-provoking, disturbing, smart, and sometimes confusing. In other words, bearing in mind that you also get another impressive music score from Howard Shore, it nicely slots into the Cronenberg canon, and it shows that he's lost none of his brilliance.
8/10
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