Well, this is an odd film, and considering all the body horror David Cronenberg had delivered in the past, The Shrouds might just be his most inaccessible film. Straight up, Cronenberg is a great, important director. His style is much imitated and he's become a touchstone for a certain way of filmmaking in the industry. But he is capable of turning out some duds (see, or don't see, the awful Maps to the Stars). This one has its moments but it feels like a personal project that, while he has earnt the right to make it, perhaps doesn't resonate as much with the wider public. Certainly not yours truly.
It's a convoluted story involving graveyard technology, medical amputation, international espionage, conspiracy theories, artificial intelligence and dangerous sex. I realise this all sounds fantastic but a couple of these themes don't really go anywhere. Vincent Cassell plays Karsh, an entrepreneur who runs a tech company specialising in 3D imaging of people's remains interred in their graves. These broadcasting shrouds allow family members to watch their loved ones decompose on the gravestone monitors provided. Each to their own.
Karsh's wife Becca (Diane Kruger) is one of the viewable corpses, and when the cemetery is vandalised, Karsh wonders if it might be a personal attack. He brings in the ex-husband, Maury (Guy Pearce), of his wife's twin, Terry (also Kruger), to help him to the bottom of things, IT-wise. Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the wife of a potential client/backer enters the story and complicates matters for Karsh (and us).
Cronenberg is often a cinematic Dadaist, though he uses Gunther von Hagens's plastination techniques, as well as Francis Bacon, as inspiration for the designs in this film. These are some of the most interesting things about the film but I feel it's damning with faint praise to focus on set or costume design in an attempt to draw positives. On the negative side, the dialogue sounds like it was written by someone whose second language is English. This is fine for Kruger and Cassell but even Guy Pearce sounds like English is a novelty for him. He's made to say, "That's duck soup" more than once, and, much as I love the Marx Brothers, this puzzled me a great deal (turns out it's an early 20th Century phrase meaning 'something easy to do').
Diane Kruger is the standout performer, in a nice little throwback to Cronenberg's cracking Dead Ringers. Cassell is fine but his delivery seems a bit stilted, likely a result of the writing more than anything. There are, I think unintended laughs, though one line from Terry about her arousal trigger was mint. This film was brought into being as a result of Cronenberg's wife's death, and so it's understandably about grief, but other themes like trust, loyalty and especially hubris, edge their way in. A perplexing little number, with a more Coen than Coen unresolved ending. But, look, it's very possible that I missed the whole point. It wouldn't be the first time.
The Shrouds opens at the Luna cinemas on July 3rd.
See also:
Videodrome (1983) and A History of Violence (2005) are my favourite Cronenbergs but his stable is heaving.
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