Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
With his partner Caprice, celebrity performance artist Saul Tenser publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. An investigator from the National Organ Registry obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed... Their mission — to use Tenser's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.
Cronenberg's late-career return to body horror is visually arresting and thematically rich, shot with a cold, decaying aesthetic that perfectly mirrors its world of flesh-as-art. The film is unmistakably Cronenbergian — a singular conception of transhumanism, performance, and visceral transformation that few filmmakers could conceive. However, the narrative meanders and struggles to cohere, with multiple threads that feel underdeveloped or deliberately opaque to the point of frustration. The ending lands with a whimper rather than a resonant conclusion, feeling abrupt and undercooked relative to the ideas it raises. Acting is committed — Mortensen, Seydoux, and Koteas bring genuine dedication — but the deliberately affectless performances can feel distancing rather than purposefully alienating. Its novelty is genuinely high as a one-of-a-kind vision, but the storytelling craft doesn't fully match its ambitious imagery.