Infinity Pool (2023) is Brandon Cronenberg’s sci-fi horror about a holiday where the rich can pay to walk away from anything, including murder. Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth star. It premiered at Sundance in January 2023 in an unrated cut and reached cinemas in a trimmed R-rated one, which is why people still ask which version to watch. This guide covers the plot, the cast, the real resort that inspired it, the differences between the cuts, and the ending explained.
What Is Infinity Pool About?
James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) is a novelist with one book to his name and a long case of writer’s block. He and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are at an all-inclusive resort on the fictional island of Li Tolqa, a heavily guarded compound guests are told not to leave. Then Gabi (Mia Goth), a fan of his book, and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert) talk them into a day trip beyond the fence.
One accident later, James is dragged into a dark underworld of drugs, sex and violence, and a justice system where money changes what punishment means. I won’t spoil how. The first-act turn is the best part of the film, and it’s worth meeting cold.
Infinity Pool Cast and Characters
- Alexander Skarsgård as James Foster, the struggling novelist.
- Mia Goth as Gabi Bauer, the fan who leads him off the resort.
- Cleopatra Coleman as Em Foster, James’s wife.
- Jalil Lespert as Alban Bauer, Gabi’s husband.
- Thomas Kretschmann as Detective Thresh.
- Amanda Brugel as Jennifer and John Ralston as Dr. Bob Modan.
- Written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg (Antiviral, Possessor), with cinematography by Karim Hussain.
Is Infinity Pool Based on a True Story?
No, but the setting is. Brandon Cronenberg told Fangoria that the film began as a short story about a single execution. To build it into a feature, he kept going back to a holiday he took about 20 years ago at an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic. Guests were bussed in overnight, so you never saw the country, then dropped into a compound ringed with razor wire. There was a fake town for shopping, a Chinese restaurant and a dire disco, and all of it made it into the film. He says the scene of a man on an ATV being chased down the beach by guards really happened.
On the daytime bus back to the airport he saw the poverty right outside the fence. That contrast, and the feeling of never having entered the country at all, became the film’s starting point. The executions, the clones and Li Tolqa itself are all invented. Fittingly, the cast and crew stayed at a resort in Croatia during the shoot, which Cronenberg told Empire felt like living in a mirror image of the film.
Why Infinity Pool Works Even Though You’re Not Meant to Like Anyone
I heard Infinity Pool was artsy and disturbing. It’s both, and it sells the first by being the second. The hook lands inside the first half hour. A luxury resort, and a government that has worked out how to make money from murder by cloning.
The two leads play opposite ends of the dial. Mia Goth goes big as Gabi, a temptress who keeps nudging James into things he’d never normally do, and she’s excellent. Alexander Skarsgård goes the other way and plays James as realistic and human, which makes his slide harder to watch. I love that Skarsgård keeps taking the most absurd roles, and that no two of them look alike. The visuals and the sound are strong too.
You’re not supposed to relate to these people. James is thinly drawn, hard to like, and his choices don’t always add up. By the end, that reads as deliberate. The ending is what makes them make sense.
What Critics Said About Infinity Pool
Reviews split between brilliant and tiresome, but a few points come up again and again.
- Rue Morgue says the film’s spell depends on Skarsgård and Goth, whose performances play out a push and pull of seduction, obsession, surrender and humiliation. It also avoids spoiling the first-act set piece, which is the right call.
- The Playlist reads it as eat-the-rich horror that goes places The White Lotus wouldn’t. Its point is that the thin plot, where mostly cruel things happen to the characters, is by design.
- The Upcoming likes the idea of endless second chances for the wealthy and Karim Hussain’s cinematography, but felt the third act loses direction and the ending isn’t justified.
- Sci-Fi Bulletin calls it The White Lotus meets The Wicker Man on acid, with Goth in the Christopher Lee role, and wonders whether Cronenberg went as far as he could. Verdict: uncomfortable but gripping.
- High On Films headlined its review as Skarsgård and Goth providing the depth in an unfocused thriller.
Infinity Pool R-Rated vs Unrated: What’s Different?
There are two cuts. The MPA gave the original version an NC-17. An appeal failed, so Neon trimmed it for an R in US cinemas, while Sundance audiences saw the unrated cut. Cronenberg has said it isn’t a fundamentally different film and that he supervised both.
Movie-Censorship.com counts 20 differences in total, about 18 seconds of footage. Here’s what they are:
- Beach scene: the unrated cut has extra explicit close-ups of the encounter between Gabi and James. The R cut trims or removes them.
- The orgy sequence: in the R cut, several brief explicit shots are replaced with colourful visual effects and distorted frames. The leads’ own nudity is the same in both.
- The first execution: the unrated cut stays on the stabbing a few seconds longer, with closer and more graphic wound shots. The R cut cuts away to alternate angles.
- The doubles’ deaths: a later double’s slit throat bleeds a fraction longer in the unrated cut.
- The finale: the final head-crushing scene is re-cut. The unrated version holds a longer, clearer blow. The R cut uses an alternate shot of the clone’s bloody hand instead.
- Shots only in the R cut: Cronenberg says a few interesting shots appear in the R version but not the unrated one.
Which should you watch? Either works. Movie-Censorship’s verdict is that every scene plays fine without those extra moments, but the unrated cut is the version Cronenberg set out to make. The first US home release was the R cut, so check which one your platform serves. The full shot-by-shot list is in Movie-Censorship’s comparison.
Infinity Pool Ending Explained (Spoilers)
Major spoilers below, including the ending.
What Is the Clone Ritual in Infinity Pool?
In Li Tolqa, killing someone is punishable by death, carried out by the victim’s family. When James runs down a local, the sentence is for the dead man’s youngest son to stab him. The loophole is for anyone who can pay: the state grows an exact double, memories included, and executes the copy while the tourist is made to watch.
For wealthy tourists, it’s a way to buy their way out of consequences. For the locals, it’s both a spectacle and a release, a way to make the visitors who exploit their land and resources pay, even if only in duplicate. The way I read it, the ritual is built on an old Li Tolqan tradition that gives a victim’s relatives the right to execute the killer, and the resort economy found a way to sell it.
What Happens at the End of Infinity Pool?
After his double is executed, James lets Em fly home and stays behind. He falls in with Gabi, Alban and a group of repeat tourists who come to Li Tolqa every year to commit crimes and pay for doubles to die for them. Over the following days he joins in, abusing resort staff, taking part in orgies and a home invasion. Things stop being fun when the group forces him to fight a double of himself to the death, and he does it.
With the resort closing for monsoon season, the others fly home as if nothing happened. James goes to the airport, then goes back to the resort and stays.
Why Does James Stay Behind?
There are two readings. The first is that he can’t face what he’s done, and the resort, now his whole identity, is his purgatory. The second, from High On Films, is darker: his hesitation to kill the double wasn’t conscience returning but the absence of one. He liked being unaccountable, and killing the double was one last step in proving he was never better than the group.
What Does the Ending of Infinity Pool Mean?
The film is about what money does to morality: if you can always pay for the consequences, you may never have had a conscience to begin with. Cronenberg has called it almost an extension of Possessor. That film was about transferring identity, this one is about duplicating it, and its question is what makes someone a continuous human. That’s also why James is hard to like. He’s not meant to be relatable, he’s meant to be a person who could be anyone.
Is Li Tolqa a real country?
No. It’s a fictional seaside country, in an intentionally unspecified region.
Where was Infinity Pool filmed?
In Croatia, where the cast and crew also stayed at a resort during the shoot.
Which version of Infinity Pool should I watch?
Either the R-rated or the unrated cut works. See the R-rated vs unrated section above for what’s different.
Is Infinity Pool a sequel to Possessor?
No. It’s Cronenberg’s third feature after Antiviral and Possessor, and a thematic cousin of the second, but the stories are separate.
Where to Watch Infinity Pool
Watch the Infinity Pool Trailer
Infinity Pool: Release and Production Details
- Director and writer: Brandon Cronenberg.
- Premiere: Sundance Film Festival, January 2023 (unrated cut).
- Cinematography: Karim Hussain.
- Countries: Canada, Hungary, France.
- Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman, Jalil Lespert, Thomas Kretschmann, Amanda Brugel, John Ralston.
- Versions: R-rated US theatrical cut, unrated (originally NC-17) cut.
- For movies like Infinty Pool watch The Privilege, The Cure or check out Mother of Movies Latest posts page and find something new to watch.
