Antiviral
(Canada/USA, 108 min.)
Written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg
Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell,
Joe Pingue, Nicholas Campbell
Celebrities have everything. The lifestyles of the rich and
famous are as exciting and intoxicating as a tall glass of champagne. In
reality, though, our cultural infatuation with the big names of the world is
about as healthy as a glass of Baby Duck. Celebrity culture is dumbing society
down. Concerns of body image have led to face-lifts and boob-jobs, but now the
allure of instant fame—made accessible by the constant wave of flashbulbs and
familiar faces on little screens—is taking brain drain to a completely new
level. The disease of celebrity has spread from the body to the mind and there
doesn’t seem to be a cure in sight.
Brandon Cronenberg makes a smart debut with Antiviral. Celebrity obsession is at the
core of the film and the director takes the cultural fixation with fame and
beauty beyond the superficial. The mania exists in its most allegorical form in
The Lucas Clinic, a unique private practice that knows that beauty is more than
skin deep. The clinic’s founder, Dr. Dorian Lucas (Nicholas Campbell) runs a
perverse business that feeds off fandom. Devoted followers can connect with
their favourite celebrity by having a part of the A-lister injected into his or
her own body. Forget bringing a photo to the salon and asking the hairdresser
to make you look like Pamela Anderson: The Lucas Clinic can infect you with the
Hep C she got from Tommy Lee.
Celebrity is so contagious that it infects even the doctors
who work in the clinic. Syd March, for example, is hooked on celebrity, as he
sneaks some prized samples from the clinic by injecting them into his
bloodstream. Syd, played by Caleb Landry Jones (Byzantium), unfortunately succumbs to the pathogen and the germ
morphs into a deadly disease. Brought down by fame and fortune (but more
privately than the fall of Lindsay Lohan), Syd gets fatally ill when he samples
a mysterious disease from the clinic’s star client, Hannah Geist (played by
Sarah Gadon, a bug that has thankfully been transmitted from father to son).
Hannah has made a name selling her body in the anonymous
setting of Antiviral. Syd frequently
administers her top-selling maladies at The Lucas Clinic—her herpes is a
popular option—and the walls of the clinic are adorned with enormous profiles
of her China doll face, which is the epitome of movie star perfection. One deli
in town even sells Hannah Geist steaks. Thanks to her glitz and glamour, Hannah
is a one-woman meat market.
Her latest sample, however, is something that one might find
at XL foods. After taste testing the malady, Syd comes down with something vicious.
He has terrible hallucinations and they’re the horror kind of body-morphing
that could come only from the mind of a Cronenberg.
Brandon Cronenberg makes a notable directorial debut by keeping
the horror sparse and simple. The director draws good work from his cast,
especially Jones (in a mostly physical performance) and Gadon, in her second
Cronenberg film after this year’s Cosmopolis.
Like David Cronenberg, Brandon makes a crafty play on the divide of body
and mind, and he uses some strange, elaborate effects to unnerve the viewer. (No
heads explode in Antiviral, but the
last shot of the film is just as gloriously disgusting.) Unlike some newbies,
Cronenberg reigns in the flair and uses the familiarity of genre to offer a sly
take upon our mania for movie stars. By preying upon viewers’ insecurity with
their bodies, he makes an unsettling, skin-crawling story. The white, aseptic
world of Antiviral exploits the
ever-burgeoning phobia of germs and uncleanliness that move through society
little a little contagion. Dirt and sickness are the only things worse than
banality, so Antiviral’s take on body-horror
will have any Purell squirting moviegoer feeling creeped out.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Antiviral is currently playing in theatres across Canada.
It screens in Ottawa at the World Exchange
Empire 7 and Silver City Gloucester.