Do you enjoy puncturing your skin with needles? How about a few needles into the gums? If you do, then Antiviral is surely the film for you. The first feature of Brandon Cronenberg, son of famous Canadian horror master David Cronenberg, begins like any stylish American flick. There are different illustrations, the one that sticks out most is the black and white theme with splashes of red. It’s a world of sterile polymers and monochrome interiors occupied in tailored frocks. It establishes the mood right away, and you better please your self because it is going to be an all out brawl.
The story is based in a world where exchanging stalkers with celebrities has been taken to another notch. In this era, fans do not merely read and watch their stars in magazines or television, fictionally, but rather they even have an option of, to some extent, touching them. Cloned tissues from the body of celebrities can be harvested, grown as meat and served in restaurants. Most of all, though, fans are able to catch the same contagions that their idols have suffered from.
Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones), the main character, sells viral illnesses of celebrities for a living. Yes, Syd is a virus man, but he also has perfected the art of contraband by taking certain viruses out of the highly structured facility and selling them on the black market. He purposely gets the diseases within a scant span of time just so as to pass the metal scanners, and his outdoor life, though interfering with and to a great extent returning back due to illness, is occupied in dealing with the side effects of the drugs.
Syd becomes obsessed or rather infatuated with another woman, Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon), a celebrity he has encountered through the press. Their bond deepens when he is summoned to extract direct samples from a sick and bed-ridden Ms Giest, against all her wishes. He wanted to believe that it was just as unpleasant as the other viruses he had contracted, but this new organism was proving out to be considerably worse than he ever expected.
Antiviral is a unique invitation to an unusual world. Or is this world in fact an evolution of our society? We have already worshiped our most popular star-vaginas, and it is not a stretch of imagination to consider that there are people who would be able to chew on the sacred book of celebrity and drink the famous person’s blood. The idea of celebrity and the way people seek something to be attached to are heavily explored in the film as well as the notion of beauty and body perspective through grotesque visuals and sometimes disturbing characters.
The narrative thrust of Antiviral is thematic, yet the audience is expected to connect with the characters, a type of connection that in this context is very intense – and contrary to the focus on celebrity, quite alluring. In bright scene of the clashing of extreme close-ups, the noisy and exaggerated music, and high quality and aesthetically beautiful direction, the film carries rather distinct impressions. Cronenberg manages to hit an intense emotion that well anchors his characters and dictates the storyline.
In the course of this narrative Syd becomes more and more unanchored as the infection takes over him. The characters are still engaging, even if there are a couple of awkward moments. The problem occurs in which it seems to be somewhere in the second act, where the plot of Antiviral slows down. It drags on longer than it needed particularly with lots of useless side plots. While its all very visually interesting, how many scenes, I wonder, do we need of Syd shooting up more virus or someones blood clotting out onto snow white bed sheets until the impact is diminished?
Then there is the drug scene, and if you must know one thing about Antiviral before entering the picture, understand that it is filled with scenes showing invasive drug users. For featuring people using drugs describes some dark undertones of the film that by no means are even slightly appealing. Detailed accounts suggest that David Croenenberg, a prominent member of the Croenenberg family with whom we are all acquainted, is terrified of needles; especially when two of his fellow contemporaries imagine how his son drenched his initial project with the above class. This yet remains to be verified.
Caleb Landry Jones, who you will recognize as Banshee from X-Men: First Class, takes up the challenge of playing the twisted Syd. This microphone, however, is also good for some great screaming. Kathryn intoxicates him and believes that this is a strong male character, but he is still understandably terribly younger for given age. The usual malady of easily replaceable supporting characters is kept from fully draining the show by very creepy performances – although too little time is devoted to British actors such a Malcolm McDowell.
One can hardly reject a parallelism between the efforts of this film and the works of the director’s parent. Have don’t this photo these features and similarities that allow you to get films The Fly or Videodrome? Well, surely it finds itself in a territory of many of elder Cronenbergs films that confuse the viewer with a plot that is both pretty and grotesque in equal measures. At last, Antiviral is not able to achieve these grand heights, however, there is something worth saying and I would be happy to hear what Mr. Brandon Cronenberg has to say again. His film is far from being an artistic accomplishment but definitely possesses certain wonderful experiences. Experiences that will provoke and stick with you. The film is intellectual and more than that interesting in light of many important factors and very stubborn in working out. It wasn’t. Let’s wish him better this time.
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