The Shrouds – TIFF 2024
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September 5 to September 15, 2024
Content Advisory: Graphic sexuality or pornography
FILM FESTIVAL
Canada's Top Ten 2024
TIFF
TIFF Canada's Top Ten
TIFF24
PROGRAMME
Gala Presentations
A grieving man develops a burial shroud that allows him to observe the decaying body of his deceased wife in The Shrouds. Karsh (Vincent Cassell) has been grieving the death of his wife Becca (Diane Kruger), who died four years prior from cancer. Through his company GraveTech, Karsh has developed burial shrouds that can allow the grieving to view video feed of the decaying bodies of the deceased. However, when 9 of the gravesites, including Becca’s, are vandalized, Karsh seeks the assistance of his ex-brother-in-law Maury (Guy Pearce), who was once married to Becca’s lookalike sister Terry (Kruger), the latter of whom believes there is a conspiracy afoot.
The Shrouds Synopsis
The Shrouds is a film written and directed by David Cronenberg (Crimes from the Future) as an outlet to deal with the filmmaker’s grief over the death of his wife Carolyn in 2017. Cronenberg reunites with his Eastern Promises star Vincent Cassell, who sports a gray-haired appearance, as Cronenberg’s avatar Karsh in this story. Cassell is joined by Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) in the triple role of Karsh’s dead wife Becca, seen predominantly in flashbacks, her sister Terry, and the voice of Karsh’s virtual assistant Hunny. When Karsh’s cemetery is vandalized, it results in concerns about a future expansion of GraveTech and his negotiations with Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt), the blind wife of Hungarian tycoon.
My Thoughts on The Shrouds
The Shrouds marks what is arguably David Cronenberg’s most dramatic and depressing film since 1993’s M. Butterfly. Apart from depicting the multiple amputations Becca received as part of her cancer treatment, The Shrouds strays from Cronenberg’s usual body horror tropes, with the film being closer to 1996’s Crash, for its inclusion of gratuitous sex and nudity. Aspects of The Shrouds that don’t work include the conspiracy thriller aspects that don’t lead to a satisfying conclusion and the cringe-inducing CGI assistant Hunny. That said, even a lesser David Cronenberg film is still a compelling watch.
