Infinity Pool is one of those movies that comes around. You watch, you finish it, and then you think, what did I just witness? It is one of the most uncomfortable movies I’ve watched in a while, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I’ll watch it again at some point because it’s a movie that makes you feel something you’ve not quite felt before.
Following a set of couples on vacation in a fictional resort in a fictional location called the Tolka, this movie was centered around what would happen if you could commit the most heinous of crimes and afford to get away with it.
Because you can create a clone to suffer the extremely horrendous punishment for it, it’s a visual and audible nightmare with a really engaging story. So let’s break down and do an Infinity Pool Ending Explained whilst looking at why it was so uncomfortable to watch.
Infinity Pool Ending Explained
Let’s start this Infinity Pool Ending Explained by looking at the ending. As the movie was unfolding, we saw that the character James Foster had started to lose a grip on his own mental state, as the thing that Gabi mentioned at the start of the movie that happened to her was happening to him. He was being groomed.
James was being groomed into becoming a person who was just as obsessed with going around and killing the residents of Tolka as the others were. Something that tied into the start of the movie, where the resident was causing trouble on the beach.
We were led to believe that outside of the resort, it was a place that was extremely dangerous for tourists. However, the only danger that was ever present was the tourists themselves. They were the ones that were going around and killing all of the people that lived there.
Them knowing that there was no real consequence to their actions as they could afford to have a copy of themselves built to face the punishment rather than themselves being put in harm’s way. This made me think that the gate that was around the resort was there for the protection of the residents and to keep the danger present within the resort.
It appeared as though Gabi and Alvin went to the location every year in order to carry out the sick mindset that they had. And the location was almost viewed as a playground for tourists to come and kill for the sake of it, like a video game or a purge almost.
James’ Transformation
At the end of the movie, when James wanted to escape after realizing that an extra copy of himself had been made and he was haunted without even realizing, we saw that he took the passport that he himself hid in order to stay after becoming obsessed with watching his own self be punished and also the freedom of being able to do what he wanted, and he set off to fly back home.
However, we saw that Gabi and the rest of the group caught up with him and said that they weren’t prepared to let him go. We saw here that Gabi was never actually a fan of James. And she researched him in order to get on his good side as she wanted to have fun with somebody while she was on the trip. So James was just a very unfortunate person in the selection.
After escaping them, we saw that James had to face his own self, which had been trained to behave like a rabid dog, and this was defined as his final transformation. He tried not to do so and to be a better person. But by the end, we saw that he became the mirror image of the dog that he was facing, as he killed the version that was in front of him with the use of overkill.
This showed that the trip had changed him completely, and he was now at the mercy of the characters that he came to meet while in Tolka. He was just as bad as them, despite not wanting to be. He’s been groomed into being a person that could do the most horrendous things and taking enjoyment in doing so.
James Stays Infinity Pool
Right at the end of Infinity Pool, we saw that their trip came to an end, and all of the characters switched off in their mind from the behaviors that they’ve been emitting, and they went back to talking about the mundane errands of everyday life.
However, James wasn’t able to do so, showing that this trip had changed him for the worse, and he couldn’t understand what had happened. We saw that he actually decided to stay in Tolka during the rainy season, and he didn’t return home.
This, to me, tied back into what we heard in the first third of the movie, where people that have been copied are questioned if they were their true selves or if they were, in fact, the copy. So I think this was the question that was going around in his head. Whilst also questioning the morality around what he’d done and the killing of the citizens.
And also be prepared to have fully conscious versions of himself being killed just for the sake of it. James being backed down to Earth in his mind most likely also brought back the severity of the hit and run that he committed and how he couldn’t escape the darkness that was now in his mind. Hence why he was prepared to stay. He couldn’t face going back home. How could he? He was a different person now.
The Visual Experience
One main aspect that made this Infinity Pool so uncomfortable to watch was the visual experience that it took us on. We had the haunting masks that would disguise the faces of the tourists in the city as they were carrying out their activities, which were deformed and looked like something that would come from a nightmare.
We had extreme hallucinations that gave us a glimpse into the mindset of what it was like to be doing what they were doing and the dazed state that they were in most of the time. Due to the visual nature of the movie allowed it to transcend the screen, which then meant that we, as the audience, would be extremely confused, dazed, and not with it, just like the characters were.
Within the opening scene, we had the camera shots which were rotating upside down, which immediately painted the picture of the unsettling environment, and we also had the bright neon colors that were tied into the mental state of all of the characters. As well as that, we had fluids and liquids, which were made of the main focus, and the sound effects that would often come with them were disgusting.
We would have extremely long lingering shots, and one of them went on for around 3 minutes, where we were watching a conversation unfold. Usually, a director would cut, but these lingered, which then meant that we were constantly waiting for it to change, providing a sense of uncomfortability but also feeling as though we were eavesdropping on the conversation as we were peering around the wall.
The slow deterioration of James was also visually clear to see. A man who once stood tall and was seeking inspiration for a novel that he was writing was now a shell of the person that he was and was always in a panicked state. Insanity injected the character of Gabi was haunting to watch develop as well, she was a maniac, and she delivered it perfectly.
The wide-eyed, open-mouth screaming and the calm, composed but the stone-cold attitude that Gabi had were harrowing to witness and made you feel like anything could happen when she was around. Mia Goth was the perfect casting for this character as it is well within her realm to be able to deliver a character like this, as we’ve seen in Pearl and ex.
Infinity Pool Review
I was a huge fan of Infinity Pool Ending, and I think it delivered everything that it needed to. The performances were top-notch, the environment and fictional world of Tolka felt like a place where you would most definitely not want to go, and it provided an extremely thought-provoking story that kept me engaged and wanting to find out what happened, what was the point of it, and what it all meant.
The uncomfortable nature of the movie is what truly makes it. If it didn’t show everything that it did, then I don’t think it would have landed with as much impact as what we’ve got.
The morality around the killing of a sentient, conscious copy of yourself and the weight of the killings of civilians whilst also being groomed into becoming somebody who will jump at the command of somebody else was interesting to watch develop for the course of the two-hour runtime. So there you have it, Infinity Pool explained.
Also Read: The Truman Show Ending Explained: The Dark Hidden Meaning Behind The Movie
