It pains me to say this, but David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” was such a disappointment. I was a major fan of his last film “Crimes of the Future,” but this latest one gets lost in a sea of muddled ideas. The film both fascinated and frustrated me. Its first hour was captivating, but it then devolved into a convoluted plot filled with mundane conspiracy theories.
The reviews are also decidedly mixed. Variety, Deadline, Vulture, THR, Screen, and The Telegraph are panning it. The Guardian and Time Out gives it 3/5 stars. The only very positive one I’m seeing right now is IndieWire’s David Ehrlich who bewilderingly gives “The Shrouds” an “A-”
A Cronenberg whodunit, that moves very slowly, and with some very clunky dialogue. There’s his usual penchant for kinky sex — added into the mix are graveyards, and, more strangely, conspiracy plots involving hacking by the Russian/Chinese governments. On a positive note, Howard Shore’s score is a beautiful mix of hymns and organs.
The film stars Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, and Sandrine Holt, and is in Cannes competition. Cronenberg has never won the Palme d’Or. He came close to winning it in 1996 with “Crash,” but the story goes that then jury president Francis Ford Coppola blocked his fellow jurors from awarding “Crash” the top prize. I doubt he’ll win it for this one.
Cronenberg’s latest follows Cassel’s innovative businessman, and grieving widower, who builds a cemetery that allows mourners to connect with their loved one’s dead bodies as they decompose in real time via underground cameras. Kruger has two roles in "The Shrouds": The late wife of Cassel's character, seen in flashbacks, and the sister of the wife. Guy Pearce plays Kruger’s paranoid, conspiracy-obsessed ex-husband.
It’s very late here, and I’ll have more thoughts on this one tomorrow.