Shadows on the Wall | The Shrouds

The Shrouds

dir-scr David Cronenberg
prd Said Ben Said, Martin Katz
with Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt, Elizabeth Saunders, Jennifer Dale, Eric Weinthal, Jeff Yung, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Vieslav Krystyan, Matt Willis, Steve Switzman
release US 18.Apr.25,
UK 4.Jul.25
24/Canada 1h59

CANNES FILM FEST
TORONTO FILM FEST

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While this eerie mystery is ponderous and enigmatic, it is packed with ideas that are intriguing enough to hold the interest. Writer-director David Cronenberg continues to explore body issues, this time as he grapples with the connection between the living and the dead. The performances ripple with understated charisma, and the premise raises offbeat questions, but the slow pace and talky script leave the film feeling cold and dry.

Toronto businessman Karsh (Cassel) has made his fortune on the afterlife, specifically a high-tech shroud system that allows grieving people to keep a 3D high-resolution eye on their deceased loved ones. The system was devised by Maury (Pearce), who is now divorced from Terry (Kruger), the sister of Karsh's late wife Becca (also Kruger). But just as Karsh begins working to expand the business globally, his cemetery is vandalised and the software hacked. Meanwhile, Karsh has his first romantic connection since his wife died, with Soo-Min (Holt), the blind wife of a billionaire Hungarian investor.

Karsh dreams about Becca at progressively invasive stages in her nightmarish cancer treatment. Eventually these visions blur with other things going on, such as whether his virtual assistant Hunny (Kruger again) has also been hacked by Russian spies. Or maybe the Chinese, as Maury is paranoid about everyone. And Becca's doctor has mysteriously vanished. These swirling plot threads are mesmerising, mixing technological advancement with darker thoughts about the human heart. So it's a problem when the film begins to go around in circles.

As usual, Cassel blends his steely presence with underlying emotional vulnerability to play Karsh, who looks rather a lot like Cronenberg himself. This man is taking a journey into his own thoughts and feelings about his late wife's body, including her carbon-copy sister, her AI twin and this new woman in his life. Kruger is terrific as Terry and Becca, cryptic and seductive in their own ways. And both Pearce and Holt have strongly intense moments in even more evasive roles.

Cronenberg has been exploring the collision between technology and human physicality for decades now, and he delights in presenting stories that don't have clear answers to enormous central conundrums, forcing audiences to work out their own feelings rather than simply rely on the script to do that. But this film begins cutting us loose early on with its languid conversations and glacial scenes that, like the film itself, feel enticingly unfinished.

themes, language, violence, sexuality 30.Jun.25

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