FilmSnobReviews

Title: Crimes of the Future
MPAA Rating: R
Director: David Cronenburg
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Lèa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart
Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins

What It Is: In the future, all human pain has been eradicated. There are no illnesses and body modifications are just at arm’s reach. It’s a synthetic world that humans explore and traverse, some mulling the sentiments of humanity while most others seek to push into trans-humanism, what seems to be the next obvious step in evolution. Saul Tenser (Mortensen) is a famous dark performance artist, who, along with his partner Caprice (Seydoux), puts on shows that reveal shocking mutations and modifications within his own body. Along the way, a mysterious group emerges looking to use Tenser’s celebrity in order to prove the enormity of their own existence.

What We Think: I’m a huge Cronenburg fan, whether it’s David’s older works such as Crash, Scanners, The Brood, Naked Lunch, and The Fly, or his son Brandon’s latest work Possessor, I always find such indulgence in the gory world-building they dedicate their films to. Interestingly they seem to all take place within various places of a darker, sexier, more violent, and cybernetic future where human sensitivity is often replaced by bizarre forms of experimentation and philias. So where and how Crimes is set is really no surprise, and timeline wise I would think it would be somewhere where Existenz and Antiviral would be. Funny enough, a lot of these films also feel very slice-of-life, with each revealing piece by piece just the scope of what the Cronenburg-verse is capable of. While I wouldn’t say this admission is definitely not my favorite, nor is it the most striking, it’s lovely to see David back in his form. I would say Crimes lives up to the legacy of futuristic and graphic films of the past, though as a whole the film rings more familiar in tone and level of effectiveness than his 2014 film Maps to the Stars, which I also wasn’t the biggest fan of (in fact, I like it quite a bit less than this film, though its setup is much better).

Otherwise, although it’s a bit of an adjustment to settle into this dark yet seemingly well-functioning city, the themes of the film overall are fascinating, especially considering their real-world reference in acknowledging the possibility if not the inevitability of people evolving with technology and materialism, rather than against it. The characters themselves feel much odder than in Cronenburg’s other films, speaking with their own timeline-relative diction which can be a little far-out, but generally, you understand what the f*ck it is they’re talking about (more so than in films like Possessor). The delivery of the script for the most part works, as the actors are able to carry it very theatrically. Aided by dark, squarish environments, the film was a lot easier to fall into when thought of almost as a play. Certain aspects made this entertaining, though on the first watch it was still easy to lose the thread of any conversation. To be fair, their conversations wrapped up in philosophy, politics, art, and identity aren’t always needed to be fully comprehended first as the direction of the performances are probably the stark thing about this film. David almost seems to be stepping back a bit from the usual gore instead to use these characters acting in incredibly strange if not painfully awkward manners in order to communicate the separation from humanism to trans-humanism. Even here, there’s intimacy and forms of sex, but the main character themselves admits he’s not great at the “old sex.” Cronenburg suggests many things that were human are far more complex now, or simply headed in a different direction, which in itself offers some fun or concerning things to think of.

Our Grade: C, Though it’s as pure as a return to form could be, the story itself isn’t the most striking or fascinating, and it’s easy to get lost in the strangely-delivered, strangely-written dialogue or grandiose gestures that lead to some sort of secretly cataclysmic events. It’s fun in certain parts and an exercise in what if and what could be, but I couldn’t say it was worth the second watch unless there’s a real investment in Cronenburg’s vision. Otherwise, I couldn’t say it was as much challenging or entertaining.