Crimes of the Future (2022)

David Cronenberg returns for the first time in nearly a decade; 2014’s Maps To The Stars was his last feature film, another outing that offered viewers a different string to Cronenberg’s bow. Crimes Of The Future is very much a return to his well-worn early days of body horror, although not a subject he’s tackled arguably since 1999’s eXistenZ. Set some time in the future, Cronenberg mainstay Viggo Mortensen plays Saul, a performance artist who grows new organs and showcases their removal as part of a double act with his partner, Lea Seydoux’s Caprice. The film opens with a scene of a young boy eating a small plastic bin watched by his weary Mother, who then minutes later smothers him to death in his bed. It’s bold, and it’s a subplot that takes a while to rejoin with the story of Saul and Caprice, but everything in the film forms a fascinating dystopian world, something that Cronenberg does so effectively (if very dankly and bleakly). It’s a world in which “surgery is the new sex”, and that’s a through line that brings to mind Dead Ringers (1988), a Cronenberg film that dealt primarily with surgery and suspicion, and remains one of his best. Crimes Of The Future is a lesser affair, not in the same league as Videodrome (1983) or The Fly (1986); and although it shares similarities with Crash (1996) it doesn’t quite have the shock value that Cronenberg’s J.G Ballard adaptation had in aplomb. What it does have however, is a string of excellent performances (Kristen Stewart’s is particularly effective) that draw you into this bizarre futuristic vision in which surgery sells rather than sex, and the story brings more than enough to justify itself and make you believe in Cronenberg’s world. It’s been a while since he last directed a film, and it’s been long enough since his last body horror fare that his foray here is nothing but welcoming, as well as being pretty darn good. 7.6/10