Crimes of the Future: Cronenberg’s Cannes-Fêted Latest Predictably Divisive

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C+

It wouldn't be David Cronenberg if the film wasn't divisive, and with that, Crimes of the Future does not disappoint to the point where Crimes might be the auteur's most divisive work yet. It is worth the time to hear arguments from both sides.

There will be those who champion Crimes for its audacity to be off-the-charts weird and (because this is Cronenberg) for its graphic depictions of open cavity surgery. There is also an arguable case favouring the film's environmental themes where climate change has ravaged the world of its evergreen beauty and left it in dank Orwellian gloom. And, of course, Cronenberg being Cronenberg, there is an intriguing if not a somewhat repetitive narrowing of the gap between wounds and sexuality.

But others—and here is where I come in—will struggle with a film void of emotion and a narrative that seems intentionally impenetrable. Again, this is Cronenberg, and I would expect nothing less than an obscure narrative and underplayed emotions.

But the bleakness Cronenberg plies onto the landscape, whether it's a child playing by the seaside near the wreck of a fallen ship, or well-dressed socialites chatting over cocktails, weighs too heavy to be appreciated.

For me to describe Crimes of the Future, even in broad strokes, is somewhat speculative as I'm not sure I get it, but here goes:

Crimes of the Future stars Viggo Mortensen as Saul Tenser, an avant-garde performance artist whose partner, Caprice (Léa Seydoux), surgically removes his mutated internal organs in front of an appalled but appreciative audience. Their performance isn't a crime, but the organs they harvest might be if the mutated organs contradict a policy set by the National Organ Registry.

Saul and Caprice have gained the attention of Wippet (Don McKellar) and Timlin (Kristen Stewart), two agents from the National Organ Registry, which incites both an investigation and an unexpected desire. McKellar's as the bureaucratic and somewhat frumpish Wippet provides the film with one of its few sources of natural energy. At the same time, Stewart's Timlin gives the film its soul and possible moral base, although I'm sure Cronenberg might argue that morality has no place in his movies.

Others in the film include Scott Speedman as Lang Dotrice (obscure character names will not be outdone by the plot), who has fathered the first child to have naturally mutating organs. There are also two assassins played by Nadia Litz and Tanaya Beatty.

There is a history to the film that began decades ago when Cronenberg released a similarly themed movie in 1970, also called Crimes of the Future. I have read that this most recent Crimes is not a remake of the original Crimes—in the same way, I suppose, The Fly (1986) was not a remake of The Fly (1958) despite both being based on George Langelaan's short story.

But according to some film historians, Crimes of the Future is the film Cronenberg has longed to take another stab at. And Mortensen himself said in an interview prior to the film's production that he was working on something with Cronenberg that he had done before.

Rumours of walkouts during the Cannes screening of Crimes are no doubt authentic—my Twitter feed would confirm as much. The assumption is that the walkouts are due to the graphic content, which I find harder to justify. Images of surgery and other (brief) elements of violence do not register as anything but synthetic. These scenes might be disturbing, perhaps, but far from real.

I didn't find it necessary to walk out of the film. Then again, I don't find it necessary to ever go back in.

Crimes of the Future. Directed by David Cronenberg. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Don McKellar, Nadia Litz, Kristen Stewart, Scott Speedman, Tanaya Beatty and Léa Seydoux. Opens in theatres June 3.