Crimes of the Future review – David Cronenberg dissects a future of sex and surgery

Eight years after his last feature hit our screens, David Cronenberg has returned to the queasy depths of the “body horror” genre he has almost single-handedly claimed as his own. Crimes of the Future, a work that would feel right at home lodged chronologically somewhere between his Videodrome and eXistenZ, marks the director's reunion with the realms of sci-fi and horror after a series of more realistically-minded features, a deeply visceral, strange and surprisingly erotic ride that feels like the philosophical filmmaker reconnecting with his roots.

Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser, a performance artist living somewhere in the near future who – along with his assistant, Caprice (Léa Seydoux) – has become well-known for a specific type of show in which “neo-organs” are removed and tattooed in front of an increasingly aroused audience by way of an extensive procedure. “Surgery is the new sex,” we're told – a Cronenbergian line if ever there was one, the film grappling with his favourite idea of technology evolving faster than the body and humankind scrambling to bridge the gap.

As the population stands on the brink of a post-human evolution, things are complicated when Saul and Caprice are summoned to the National Organ Registry, a department headed by bureaucratic Wippet (Don McKellar) and assistant Timlin (a hilariously agitated performance from Kristen Stewart, who knows exactly what kind of movie she's in), designated to research something called “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome.” But who is the man called Lang and what does he want Saul to do with the body of his recently deceased son, Brecken?

Cronenberg finds several unforgettable images among the dank interiors that make up this murky but oddly erotic vision of the future, aided by an impressive, oppressive throwback of a score by Howard Shore. We see a man whose mouth has been sewn up and whose body has been decorated with human ears; Saul, fixed to a gnarled, flesh-coloured chair that feeds him breakfast; and Saul and Caprice intwined in a carnal sarcophagus as they're cut and sliced by a machine, engaged in a heightened form of “new sex.”

For all its serious imagining, though, there's an underlying humour to Crimes of the Future that easily pegs it as a subtle comedy. Cronenberg's knack for terrible names – Timlin? – is on full display, for one thing, though one suspects these are intentionally awkward-sounding, ill-fitting to the extent that they come full circle and are impossible to get out of your head. And it's hard not to be amused by Mortensen's choked performance as he goes from scene to scene dressed in a black cloak, uttering lines like: “I'm not so good at the old sex.”

Yet perhaps the most shocking thing about Crimes is that initial claims – not least from the director himself – that this movie would cause fainting and mass walk-outs seems largely overhyped. Crimes isn't a particularly gruesome or controversial movie by modern standards – in fact, it maintains a fairly quiet and meditative feel for most of its runtime, with flashes of the strange and violent wedged between scenes that are alternately tender and erotic, making it easy to be swept away in its dream-like atmosphere.

More surprising, perhaps, is that for all its close-ups of intricate surgical procedures and pulsating organs, there is a lingering sense that Cronenberg could have gone weirder. At points, one wishes he'd just let the visuals speak for themselves over a sometimes jargon-heavy script, especially in the more talky second half. And considering the time that's passed since his last foray into body horror, Cronenberg diehards could also convincingly argue that Crimes doesn't quite push the director's ideas about the intersection between sex, technology, and the body forward enough. Is he saying anything here that he hasn't said before?

It's also hard to shake the feeling that the film simply isn’t long enough: the abrupt ending, arriving when it feels like there’s at least thirty minutes of material to see through, gives the whole piece an unfinished quality, as though the director was forced to shut down the production early and cut his losses. No matter: for all its fully engaging 107 minutes, this still feels like a minor gift from a filmmaker who is clearly enjoying the chance to dissect his perverse obsessions in a brand new decade.

Crimes of the Future was screened as part of the Cannes Film Festival 2020. It will be released in UK cinemas on 9 September.