The Shrouds

Its disappointing to see a talented filmmaker lose his way in one of his works. Unfortunately, thats precisely the problem with the latest effort from acclaimed writer-director David Cronenberg in a film that seemingly had potential but fails to pull it together in the final product. Karsh Relikh (Vincent Cassel) is a successful Canadian businessman consumed with grief over the death of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger), who attempts to cope with his loss by inventing a questionable and arguably macabre technology that allows survivors to peer into the graves of their departed loved ones to, for lack of a better explanation, monitor the deterioration of the deceaseds corpses. From this premise (and the misleading trailer), one might get the im...

For all his cool detachment, methodical craftsmanship and pitch-black irony, The Shrouds finds the great David Cronenberg at his most heartfelt and, despite having publicly played down the autobiographical nature of this script, at his most personal.

Cronenberg's wife passed away in 2017 after a prolonged illness and in Vincent Cassel's Karsh we could perhaps see a Cronenberg cypher, through which the great filmmaker shares his experiences of loss, grief and sexual desire, as well as one's wrestle with impermanence and mortality.

Karsh is a businessman in the death business, haunted by his dead wife during sleep and by her twin sister (both played by the beautiful Diane Kruger) in waking life. And through the unfolding conspiracy ag...