Few filmmakers divide me as much as Canadian director David Cronenberg. When he’s on point, like with The Fly, his work is unforgettable. But when he stumbles, as in Crimes of the Future, the result can be downright unpleasant. Still, I have a soft spot for auteurs, and I’ll always show up for their latest visions. Going into The Shrouds, I had no idea what to expect. The split reactions from Cannes suggested this might be one of Cronenberg’s most polarizing films yet, but not for the usual reasons. This time, the controversy lies in its intimacy: this is arguably his most personal film to date.
We follow Karsh (Vincent Cassel), an innovative businessman and grieving widower after the death of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). In his grief he creates a burial shroud that allows the living to view the body of their decomposing loved one. However, his burial technology is vandalized and hacked, which sends him into a spiral of grief and paranoia as he tries to figure out who is behind it. So it is needless to say that David has been processing his wife’s death, in a way that is very much like him.
As with much of David Cronenberg’s work, The Shrouds is designed to make viewers uneasy. But unlike the visceral discomfort evoked by his trademark body horror or provocative sexuality, both of which are present but surprisingly muted here, the source of unease in this film is harder to pin down. There’s something uncanny about the world Cronenberg constructs. The cinematography, production design, performances, even the dialogue all contribute to a disquieting sense that something is just… off. It’s a subtle but persistent dissonance that lingers throughout the film, unsettling in a way that’s more psychological than physical.
Narratively, however, The Shrouds is far less cohesive. At its core, the film flirts with the structure of an investigative thriller, but its execution is erratic and scattershot. One moment, we’re immersed in a man’s grieving process; the next, we’re pulled into a mystery involving technological sabotage; then suddenly, we’re watching him sleep with a potential client, followed closely by an encounter with his sister-in-law, only for the following scene for him to be locked in paranoid conversations with an AI version of his deceased wife. The film becomes a patchwork of loosely connected threads that never fully cohere. There’s a sense that something profound lies beneath the surface, but the pieces are too fragmented to form a clear picture.
This narrative disjunction also bleeds into the film’s thematic exploration. Cronenberg engages with weighty ideas, grief, memory, technological mediation of death, but does so in a way that feels more speculative than conclusive. His vision of mourning is filtered through an unsettling invention: a shroud-like MRI that allows the living to watch their loved ones decompose in real time. It’s a concept rife with potential for social and psychological commentary. Yet unlike his earlier critiques of technological overreach, Cronenberg seems to treat this device less as a dystopian warning and more as a strange, clinical tool for healing. The result is fascinating, but ambiguous. By the film’s end, one is left with more questions than answers, about both the narrative and what Cronenberg ultimately wants to say.
Ultimately, The Shrouds is a film that resists easy interpretation, and perhaps that’s the point. Even as I reflect on it, I find myself struggling to fully grasp how I feel about the experience. It’s intellectually provocative and thematically ambitious, delving into the intersection of grief and technology in a way only Cronenberg could attempt. Yet emotionally, it left me distant, more puzzled than moved. It may be a film that reveals more upon a second viewing, or perhaps it’s simply not aligned with my sensibilities. Either way, it’s clear that The Shrouds is a deeply personal work from a filmmaker still unafraid to challenge and confront. Whether it resonates or not, it certainly lingers.
My Rating: Not for me.
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