It’s weird that David Cronenberg has two movies with this title and yet they aren’t connected in any way. Putting that aside, a brief overview of the movie. In the future, mankind has dwindled in size and major parts of cities and civilizations are in ruins. While not specified how far in the future it is or what has happened, it is clear that society and people have changed in dramatic ways. Most people no longer feel pain. Those that do also have the ability to create new organs. In this world, surgery is the new sex as people experience relief and satisfaction from being cut open. Performance artists are the main example of this, such as Viggo Mortensen’s & Lea Seydoux’s characters. But a strange man approaches them to do a performance with a certain body and the new government is working with the Organ Registry to fight back against this man and his group.

I should start with my criticisms of the movie. For some reason, everyone speaks really softly. This isn’t that surprising as many Cronenberg movies seem to have characters speak softly. And there are scenes where that delivery works. But there are just as many scenes where it is difficult to make out what they are saying. There is one scene, where Seydoux’s character is speaking to the crowd watching the final performance of the movie. But the crowd are several feet away and are on higher ground. She should speak louder so they can hear her! There is a subplot that comes up in the movie that doesn’t really go anywhere. I do get what it is supposed to add to Mortensen’s character – someone who feels pain and grows organs only to have them cut out during his performances. It’s meant to push him towards where his character ends up regarding his personal beliefs. But the subplot just feels like it is unceremoniously killed off.

One thing I wasn’t expecting this film to critique is the art world. In this movie, anyone can do surgery. Which makes sense because the way it is done and is experienced by people, it is very much sex. But only certain people are seen as artists and seemingly give meaning to it. It took me a minute for me to adjust to how this is used to parallel the art culture of the real world. Mainly because it takes a while into the movie for the critique to become clear. And I think that might be my biggest critique of the film. You watch it for a while and it is definitely interesting and you want to watch where it goes. But for a while it leaves you wondering what exactly the point of the movie is. What is the message it is trying to convey? It takes until the third act of the movie for your brain to make the connection once Mortensen’s & Seydoux’s characters ask the mysterious man why he wants them to go through with his request for a performance. That request being to perform an autopsy on his dead son.

And from there, I transition to my biggest praise for this movie. When the movie gets to this point, your brain makes the connections very quickly. This movie is exploring how society and the world around us has affected the evolution of our bodies. The people growing new organs are seen by the mysterious man and his group as being the next step in what humanity is becoming. And while this mysterious man’s group has surgically altered themselves, the dead son is the first one to be born with the new organs and system. That is also when you realize that the new government and the Organ Registry want to discredit these people because if this revelation becomes known, who knows how people would react. Granted, by the time you reach this point in the movie, you would assume that everyone would actually not be too disgusted by that. But the way the government tries to find and shut down people in the performance art world or this other group is a form of control. And the government in the real world does have a history of wanting to control what can and can’t be done to our own bodies.

The third act revelation also adds more meat to a lot of characters – their journeys and their motivations. That’s not to say they aren’t good performances. Mortensen is great as always and Seydoux is just as good. Another standout is Kristen Stewart – all though, she doesn’t do a lot. In that way, her role is similar to Robert Pattinson’s in Cronenberg’s movie “Maps to the Stars”. They are definitely in the movie and they have some level of effect on the storyline. But they don’t have a lot of screen time and they do seem to be lacking some sense of closure. I would have liked one more final scene with Stewart’s character to gain a little more insight into her beliefs now that we know the full extent of what she was doing.

But Mortensen’s character journey is the main one to focus on. He is one of the most famous performance artists in this new world. But he is also secretly working with the new government to find and capture certain criminals taking things too far. He is a part of the world but he is in between how life used to be and what life is moving forward. There are multiple times where characters comment on how Mortensen’s character is trying to maintain control over his body through him letting his new organs be cut out before they take root. And when you get to the third act, you put together that this is him denying the changes that are already happening to him and mankind in general – whether he knows that’s why he is doing it or not. But when the end of the movie comes, he does find belief. He believes in what the mysterious group says about how their bodies are changing and what that truly means for them. And the movie ends with him making a decision that see shim embracing that ideology and finally experiencing total relief from the pain he has been feeling.

Sorry if this has been vague, I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible. But this is a movie where the main message is actually very provocative and it stays with you well after you leave the theater. It does unfortunately take a while for the message to be fully realized and there are parts that could have been improved on. But the good outweighs the bad in my opinion and is worth the watch.