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Movie Review: Crimes of the Future

Mike Tyrkus

Although one might expect David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future to deliver several cringe-inducing scenes given the festival press swirling around it, the film is actually rather subdued in terms of its adherence to the “body horror” genre generally connected with the filmmaker’s other works. That being said, while it may not be the finest example of the Cronenberg ethos, it is easily one of the more thought-provoking and interesting films of his career. 

In the auteur’s latest exploration of the body politic, Cronenberg surmises that human evolution has adapted to encompass life in a synthetic environment. This has allowed some human bodies to transform and mutate (though not necessarily for identifiable or specific evolutionary purposes). Harnessing this new genetic oddity, performance artist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), presents the metamorphosis his body undergoes as a series of “avant-garde” performances along with his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux). However, when investigators from the National Organ Registry (one named Timlin is played by Kristen Stewart) become involved with his latest exhibition, it appears that the next stage of human evolution is at hand.  

Arriving eight years after his last film, Maps to the Stars (2014), Crimes of the Future signals a return to his roots of sorts. Though not in the sense that the film is at all associated with his 1970 short film of the same name, but rather in that the film concerns itself with the relationship of human evolution with regards to whether biology or sociology are superior avenues. In some ways, the film is Cronenberg at his best, and in others it is everything that those who dislike most of his work will find equally displeasing. That being said, the film is a welcome return to the cinema for one of the most original and thought-provoking filmmakers of the last half century. 

Viggo Mortensen delivers a tense and ethereal performance as performance artist Saul Tenser, who may also be working for the very system his art seems abhorrently opposed to. Similarly, Léa Seydoux’s Caprice is equal partner and victim as she aids Tenser with his performances and undergoes her own body modifications. Kristen Stewart’s Timlin however, plays as the somewhat confused, yet enraptured surrogate for the audience as the film moves along. 

Kristen Stewart and Viggo Mortensen in “Crimes of the Future.”

Douglas Koch’s cinematography affords the film the otherworldly, yet somehow familiar, appearance that is present in Carol Spier’s production design. An engaging and haunting soundtrack courtesy of Howard Shore only heightens the overall mood and tone of the film. 

While Cronenberg may be revisiting some of his earlier obsessions in part with Crimes of the Future, he is also offering a new way of looking at the politics of the human body, and emotional wellspring of evolution itself. Although it may not achieve the heights of his best work, Crimes of the Future is a film well worth exploring and engaging with. 

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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