Imagine a future where celebrities are worshiped as
gods. They have more pull than most
politicians, and the public's unhealthy obsession is at an all-time high with
24/7 news cycle devoted to the more obscure celebrities gossip. Sounds familiar
right? Brandon Cronenberg's (yes, son of that other famous Cronenberg guy) directorial
debut, Antiviral proposes an
alternate history/future showing that our celebrity obsession has reached a
point where fans willingly inject themselves with diseases cultivated from
celebrities who contract that same disease. The film features a powerhouse lead performance and a
visually arresting vision of the future with a story that can't quite fully
commit to its insanity.
Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) is a young "disease salesman"
helping the obsessed become closer to their favorite famous people. He smuggles high profile, in-demand
diseases by injecting himself and selling his contaminated blood on the black
market. During a routine
extraction from a high profile client, Syd gets a bad batch and finds himself
tumbling down into a much more sinister world than he ever imagined.
This world is cold, grimy and empty filled with leeches and
the lonely. Cronenberg shoots with
a calculated precision showing impressive shot composition and effective set
design. Caleb Landry Jones matches his director in delivering a distant, creepy
performance that fits the world surrounding him. The cold, lifeless style causes a distressing lack of emotion.
The movie's extreme needle-in-skin close ups start to lose the shock value
since at no point do we effectively feel what the characters are feeling.
The concept is slightly on the nose and silly but ultimately
the world is just so damn interesting I can't help being completely involved.
Comparisons to his father will be hard to avoid, but I think Brandon has
created his own unique voice that shows promise. More than anything, I can't
wait to see what he comes up with next. Antiviral might be a tough pill to swallow, but you should suck
it up and try something new.
