The Shrouds
When he loses his wife Becca (Diane Kruger, "Inglourious Basterds") to a harrowing bout with cancer, entrepreneur Karsh (Vincent Cassel, "Irreversible," "Black Swan") founds GraveTech, a technology company which allows the bereaved to witness the decomposition of their loved ones on a screen on their headstones via the hi tech casings they are placed in before burial. But when nine graves are vandalized at his foundational Toronto cemetery, including that of his wife, Karsh must consider an espionage conspiracy, with Russia, China, or both potentially utilizing his technology embedded in "The Shrouds."
Laura's Review: C
Writer/director David Cronenberg's follow-up to "Crimes of the Future," where people allow themselves to be surgically mutilated as performance art and Lifeform Ware creates machinery products to allow people to perform such basic tasks as eating, is of a piece, right down to the erotic implications of bodily disfigurement, but where the earlier film was spawned by the resurrection of a twenty year-old script, the newer encompasses a personal reaction to the death of Cronenberg's wife.
"Crimes of the Future" was a bit overstuffed with ideas, but "The Shrouds" 'spying-through-devices-placed-within-corpses-interred-by-GraveTech' is too far-fetched in its execution, derailing the film's momentum. Cronenberg is already juggling the concept of a jealous ex brother-in-law, his business contractor Maury (Guy Pearce, "The Brutalist"), who is anxious that Karsh may sleep with Becca's identical looking sister Terry (also Kruger), Maury's ex-wife. There is also Maury's possible manipulation of Karsh via Hunny (also Kruger), the AI assistant he designed for him; flashbacks revealing Karsh's growing concern about Becca's relationship to her doctor, Jerry Eckler (Steve Switzman), a past lover; and a dying entrepreneur, Karoly Szabo (Vieslav Krystyan), whose wife, Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), appears to have more than Karsh's technology on her mind.
And yet, she is the one who tells him that while her dying husband wishes to fund a Hungarian arm of GraveTech, he needs to be assured that the Russians are not using the technology for surveillance purposes. Meanwhile Karsh has become obsessed with small growths he's seen appear on Becca's bones, wondering if they might be implanted devices. Dr. Rory Zhao (Jeff Yung) assures him they are natural, then states they couldn't have grown after Becca's death, which is when they began to appear.
While Cronenberg has been examining links between the human body and technology since 1977's "Rabid," there is nothing very compelling about a surveillance plot involving corpses, at least the way it is shoe-horned in here. The human aspect is much more compelling, if not somewhat off-putting, especially as shown in flashbacks of Karsh's sexual desire for Becca as she loses various body parts to her disease and breaks a hip with a cringe-inducing snap during lovemaking.
Cronenberg semi-regular Cassel keeps us at a remove with his performance, his monotone delivery and shifting allegiances making for a strange psychological profile. Also odd are Kruger, whose Becca is mostly notable for her unabashed body baring and whose Terry is differentiated by a tomboyish haircut, overalls and career in dog groomin;, and Pierce, who creates techno-geek Maurey by wearing glasses, hunching inward and failing to register. Elizabeth Saunders (TV's 'From') creates more interest as Karsh's operational director Gray Foner in a much smaller role and both holt and Jennifer Dale as arranged date Myrna Shovlin, who acts as our entry to Karsh's technology, are more interesting romantic foils than Kruger.
As usual, Cronenberg's props and effects are well thought out, his shrouds resembling fashionable chainmail, Karsh's donning of one plunging us into a Body World exhibit, but even cinematographer Douglas Koch's visuals are as chilly and artificial feeling as Cronenberg's electric car world. "The Shrouds" is of interest to Cronenberg completists only.
Robin's Review: C+
Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a genius inventor and successful businessman inconsolable after the long-lingering death of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). He invents a video cloak that will allow the deceased’s survivors to watch their dearly departed’s remains decay – in real time - in “The Shrouds.”
Since the death of his wife, film editor Carolyn Zeifman, in 2017, David Cronenberg has only directed two films, “Crimes of the Future (2022)” and his latest, both body horror films. (This is not a surprise since he is the master of body horror movies, like “Videodrome” in 1983 and “Dead Ringers (1988)”.) With “The Shrouds,” he is also dealing with dangers of high-technology, conspiracy theories and them pesky Russians and Chinese out to hack everything.
Karsh’s macabre invention, designed for the voyeur in us, wraps the deceased in a shroud permeated with tiny x-ray cameras that allows the living to watch their beloved dead decay. He has no problem selling his funerary device to the very wealthy, creating an exclusive, wired cemetery for his clients, living and dead. Then, the cemetery is vandalized and graves destroyed. One of the desecrated graves was Becca’s and Karsh sets out to find and punish the perpetrators.
This is obviously a very personal film for auteur Cronenberg and, like it or not, it is homage to his late spouse and centers on grief and how one copes with it. Here, Karsh throws his wealth at the problem and his company, GraveTech, produces and markets the voyeuristic hi-tech burial garment.
I do not know what others will make of “The Shrouds” but I find the concept to be incredibly creepy and off-putting. In a way, I feel like the voyeur watching, from a distance, as the filmmaker bares his soul. This is not something I do by choice – well, actually, it is from choice – but it takes the viewer to a place that I prefer not to go. I would rather not indulge someone obsessed with death. Now, life, on the other hand….
Sideshow Janus releases "The Shrouds" in select theaters on 4/18/25, wide on 4/25/25.
