The Shrouds

It's disappointing to see a talented filmmaker lose his way in one of his works. Unfortunately, that's precisely the problem with the latest effort from acclaimed writer-director David Cronenberg in a film that seemingly had potential but fails to pull it together in the final product. Karsh Relikh (Vincent Cassel) is a successful Canadian businessman consumed with grief over the death of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger), who attempts to cope with his loss by inventing a questionable and arguably macabre technology that allows survivors to peer into the graves of their departed loved ones to, for lack of a better explanation, monitor the deterioration of the deceaseds' corpses. From this premise (and the misleading trailer), one might get the impression that this would be a story with dark, spooky, supernatural overtones. However, as it plays out, the film goes from tangent to tangent to tangent without direction or satisfactory closure, leading viewers on a wild goose chase that, in the end, feels unresolved and incomplete. This alleged horror offering (which is admittedly not particularly scary or engaging) is actually more of a mystery/psychological thriller that ends up weaving a jumbled web of story arcs involving ever-evolving incidents of international business espionage and technological intrigue, the paranoid (and head-scratchingly erotically driven) ravings of Becca's conspiracy theory-obsessed sister, Terry (Kruger in a dual role), the love-starved pining of Terry's unbalanced ex-husband and expert computer hacker, Maury (Guy Pearce), and Karsh's tawdry affair with Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the blind wife of a dying Hungarian corporate magnate (Vieslav Krystyan) who wants to invest in the expansion Karsh's graveyard technology venture, among other puzzling and seemingly unrelated narrative threads. Add to this the picture's glacial pacing and a series of overlong and not especially revelatory dream sequences, and viewers are left with a genuinely bizarre offering. To its credit, the production features some inventive cinematography, a capable collection of performances, and a surprising wealth of inspired and perfectly timed comic relief (truly one of the film's best attributes), but these assets aren't enough to save a sinking ship that plunges deeper and deeper the longer this release goes on, all the way up to its abrupt and unfulfilling conclusion. This clearly is one of those productions that's likely to prompt many audience members to ask, "What was the director thinking?", a justifiable inquiry, to be sure. Cronenberg has produced a fine body of work over the course of his career, but it's nearly impossible to fathom what he was going for here.

Compared to the very mediocre "Crimes of the Future", Cronenberg's previous effort and return to the body horror subgenre that made his fame, "The Shrouds" is a return to doing something... acceptable might be the right word? But like in that previous film, in almost every scene of "The Shrouds" you are likely to think of another similar Cronenberg movie that, very probably, did it better. You might, most notably, be reminded of the awesome "Crash", which dealt with similar themes of macabre voyeurism and sexual fascination for death, physical corruption and wounds much more memorably. It is the curse of older, accomplished filmmakers that their latest offerings are ceaselessly compared to their earlier masterpieces, but it's also inevitable when said filmmakers are so clearly out of fresh ideas.

That the story, which is far more elaborate than in "Crimes of the Future", goes literally nowhere, is no major issue - it is only an epiphenomenon to play with more fundamental themes. But it is still a slog to follow our rather bland protagonist through an investigation of sorts that becomes more tedious by the minute. I challenge you to actually care about any of the answers surrounding the many mysteries at the heart of "The Shrouds".

Not that you should expect any answers anyway. What matters is our protagonist's psyche, which is made clear by the opening scene (and I guess by the very last one, which made part of the packed auditorium laugh by its rather spectacular dropping of the story in the middle of nowhere). Those two scenes do work in conveying the idea that the story really is about processing one's grief over the passing of a loved one, which makes sense given that Cronenberg drew from the death of his wife to dream up the story. Yet, again, everything feels like a late variation (if not actual repetition) of things Cronenberg already did and said, rather than a new, late-age angle on these same issues.

What bugs me most is how the protagonist never feels like he is really troubled in his psychic core by what is happening to him; Vincent Cassel, who is certainly the equal of James Woods or James Spader, is pretty good as the cool, cold tech entrepreneur who's into minimalism and crypto necrophilia, but when it comes to expressing any kind of compulsion and fascination, there simply is too little to sustain the movie. Even worse perhaps, his supposed fascination never feels real, authentic, consuming. No descent into the shadow side for our hero, no journey through the unexplored, gross swamps of his soul - or of contemporary society's.

And that, to me, is the most disappointing about "The Shrouds". How the other pole of the director's oeuvre, technology, is never actually addressed. His best horror films explore the collective unconscious and how we human beings relate to technology. How there is no real opposition between the organic and machinic but an actual symbiosis-in-coming. How we are meant by our instincts and unconscious desires to reappropriate and merge and do unspeakable things with our gadgets. Nothing like that here, with an interesting premise that is never actually explored. Featuring mobile phones, self-driving Teslas and a personal AI just feels like checking uninspired boxes. The A. I. assistant portion of the plot should, like so much else, have been elaborated on, although I get the idea - behind our machinery and supposedly autonomous tech, there's us and and our unavowed, shameful longings. Too bad "The Shrouds" decides to stay on the surface rather than dig out the dead bodies that haunt our fantasies.

The Shrouds, directed by David Cronenberg, begins with a hauntingly intriguing premise: a near-future world where custom-designed tombs allow the living to view their deceased loved ones in real time. Vincent Cassel portrays Karsh, the enigmatic inventor of this macabre innovation, navigating a frozen landscape of grief, obsession, and longing. The film's opening offers a glimpse into Cronenberg's flair for unsettling, cerebral storytelling, but the promise quickly unravels into a convoluted and excessive narrative.

Cassel delivers a restrained performance, perfectly capturing Karsh's detachment and obsession, while Diane Kruger as his deceased wife and Soo-Min as a potential client's blind spouse provide compelling, if underutilized, presences. However, the supporting characters, including Jennifer Dale as Karsh's former sister-in-law and love interest, are sidelined by a sprawling plotline that veers into espionage, eco-activism, and corporate conspiracy. These elements feel disconnected, detracting from the emotional core of the story.

Cronenberg's signature exploration of body horror and the grotesque resurfaces here, but the graphic depictions of mutilation and surgery feel more gratuitous than meaningful, overshadowing the thematic depth the film initially hints at. The film's focus on existential musings about grief and attachment is muddled by its insistence on indulging in sensationalist visuals and a jumbled narrative.

Adding to the film's shortcomings is an overuse of product placement, which distracts from the immersive atmosphere and undermines its artistic integrity. The Shrouds falters in its attempt to balance intellectual ambition with visceral spectacle, leaving audiences with a fragmented and unsatisfying experience.

Rating: 5/10 - A promising concept buried under excessive spectacle and an overcomplicated plot.

Cronenberg's 2024 film explores death and technology. The film surrounded the idea of grieving with the story of Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a wealthy tech-entrepreneur mourning the death of his wife. His influence within the tech field, using a new software (called "Shroud") for mourning tradition that the living surviving loved ones can use.

His wife's body, is documented with cameras showing the decaying process, connected to cellular apps, etc.. Personal technology allows for the mourning to continue - it's the digital age for necromancy? A love like Cassel's obsession with his wife's body, that he projects onto to his wife's sister both roles played by Diane Kruger.

The rest of the film becomes almost noir-like amateur sleuth story. Karsh trying to solve recent desecrated cemetery plots including his wife's burial spot. The film's pace swifts into subplots, it's bit of a sidetracked.

The film is different from his recent productions, set in Canada. Its tone is somber, almost quiet not relying gore or onscreen violence. The most violent reference is the desecrated burials (which isn't seen and the other is Cancer. The terminal illness killed Karsh's wife (within his dreams, flashback scenes).

The film got critical reactions since Cronenberg's motivation was the death of the director's wife, Carolyn. Aesthetically, this film wasn't really exploring body horror, completely abandoned even the gore effects. Yes, it can be suggested as a decaying corpse to body deformation caused by Cancer and it's surgeries on Karsh's late wife.

Moreover, it explores Westernized traditions of memorialize the dead, mourning process catches up with 21st century technology: social media culture. If this is Cronenberg's prediction in the near future of memorialization? It's pretty credible that wealthy tech icons could be exploring. He puts quite of bit in tech aspects from encryption to resolution topics, throws off film's humanistic focus.

At it's base it's not a terrible movie, the problem is that the base consists of so many ideas and subjects that it's hard not to get lost in all of the mess.

It's a critique of technological advance, AI, privacy & spyware, (experimental) surgeries and health, the Chinese, capitalism, rich people, modern society and so on and so on ... The bad writing doesn't help either, the dialogue can be stupid or just straight up exposition, the story jumps between characters and plot lines in a sloppy way, and I know (or at least think) that some of the dialogue is self aware and doesn't take itself seriously, which made it corny, funny (the audience laughed from time to time) and honestly fun. You can consider this movie a "so bad it's good" movie, at least that's how I see it, I certainly didn't suffer.