David Cronenberg is currently 82 years old. He\u2019s one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation; like David Lynch, he\u2019s a director whose mere name conjures up a specific style, a definable aesthetic, even though he never repeated himself or went for the easy hit. And yet, his new film could sit snugly alongside the likes of Hitchcock\u2019s Torn Curtain<\/em> and Hawks\u2019s Rio Lobo\u2014 <\/em>the work of a gifted artist, past his prime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It starts off with promise. The opening sequence shows us a woman, her nude, rotting body in some sort of suspended animation, while a man watches from a window and howls in pain. This is a dream sequence, or a nightmare; the man is Karsh (Vincent Cassell), a producer who\u2019s become an inventor and entrepreneur, and the woman is his wife Becca (Diane Kruger), who died some time before. He\u2019s not taking it well \u2014 \u201cGrief is rotting your teeth,\u201d his dentist informs him. But for all of this effort, Karsh cannot shake her memory. She still comes to him in dreams, mixtures of memories and nightmares that linger on the details of her disease \u201ceating away\u201d at her. And she\u2019s ever present in the form of her sister (also played by Kruger), who split with one of Karsh\u2019s business associates. (Kruger also provides the voice of his AI assistant.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her double-casting recalls Cronenberg\u2019s mesmerizing Dead Ringers<\/em>, and not in a good way; it reminds us of what this man can do when he\u2019s at full power, which he clearly is not here. The Shrouds<\/em> also replicates that picture\u2019s quiet menace, which has become something of a de facto<\/em> mode for him. I\u2019ll confess to nodding off a bit during his last film, Crimes of the Future <\/em>(don\u2019t worry, I wasn\u2019t reviewing it), not because it\u2019s dull, but because it\u2019s so quiet, so modest and mellow, with its characters barely speaking above a whisper. The new film is in that same mold, but this time it leads to a sense of monotony, even as the plotting and characters grow increasingly silly. (Cronenberg was able to make people getting turned on by car wrecks into riveting and believable cinema, but there\u2019s a much simpler seduction scene here that isn\u2019t remotely credible\u2014 it just gets bad laughs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are compelling ideas floating around in The Shrouds<\/em>, but the connective tissue is too tenuous. The actors try their best, but Cassell and Kruger, both skilled, are lost at sea. Poor Guy Pearce ends up unloading reams of exposition, to no avail. In fact, the endless chatter is what\u2019s most off-putting about the picture; this brilliant visual stylist has become a court stenographer, giving us two hours of people standing in rooms, spouting stilted dialogue, long-winded theories, and repetitive thematic digressions at each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no shame in a filmmaker losing their fastball \u2014 it happens all the time (though not every <\/em>time, as someone should remind Quentin Tarantino<\/a>, with the most recent Scorsese and Wiseman pictures serving as strong counter-arguments) \u2014 so it\u2019s not so much that The Shrouds<\/em> is an embarrassment as it is an unforced error. It prompts a simple question: would this film have even made it into the festival circuit, much less to a theater near you, if it were helmed by an unknown?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Shrouds” is out Friday in New York and Los Angeles. It opens everywhere on April 25. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
To cope with his grief, he\u2019s developed a technology called GraveTech, which wraps the recently departed in an electronic shroud which captures 3-D images of their decaying body and puts them on a screen on their gravestone. \u201cI can see what\u2019s happening to her,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019m in the grave with her. And it makes me happy.\u201d The company only has one facility so far, but they\u2019re looking at expansion into several countries, and at some high profile clients (prompting the memorable line, \u201cI want this! I want his rotting body in our cemetery\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/shrouds2-1024x577.webp\")
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