If The Infinite Husk might be summed up in not more than two phrases, its “existential dread.” The age-old story of humanity’s function, replete with its beauties and flaws, is reawakened by director Aaron Silverstine in his characteristic debut. This time, it’s in a 100-minute sci-fi thriller, with the existential query emanating top-down and linearly — from a sentient alien species inhabiting human hosts (“husks” as they’re known as).
The Infinite Husk is a flawed hybrid of 2013’s The Host and Interstellar, infused with the sort of metaphorical ambition one would possibly count on from a Jane Schoenbrun story, however poorly executed. Psychological thrillers play with unstable minds and realities whereas juxtaposing them with what makes an individual, or a folks, human. This movie does neither. Adamant on presenting the worst of humanity for no significant purpose, it asks viewers to just accept that its alien homecoming journey carries a larger-than-life message about life itself. In its closing stretch, the movie’s sweeping promise of that means fades right into a conclusion too skinny to actually imagine in.
Alien Consciousness Finds Humanity a Jail in The Infinite Husk
“Mission one: Purchase Husk. Full.” These are among the many first phrases in The Infinite Husk that sign its alien-genre origin. The extraterrestrial species appears to exist purely as consciousness, floating amongst many galaxies. So it’s a superb guess what occurs when one is pressured into the confines of the physique of a “primitive” race like humanity within the identify of espionage. Vel (Peace Ikediuba) turns into the unwilling jail for such a presence after it overtakes her physique in Los Angeles. Exiled from its house planet to Earth, the alien’s solely hope of returning house lies in finishing its mission: secretly observing the work of a fellow Earth-bound alien scientist, Mauro Circus-Szalewski.
Earlier than the espionage mission may even be begun, it should first be taught the idiosyncrasies and workings of its husk. Awkward social behaviors apart (sporting a bizarre broad smile and never figuring out drink water), she behaves like several regular “twenty-five to thirty-something-year-old would. Bar bronchial asthma, her husk is wholesome, not like the cancer-ridden Mauro, who has been sentenced to life on Earth and has occupied so many husks that he can now not depend them.
Appearing regular is the least of her worries as an earthling. Grounded in humanity, she should additionally navigate its social and psychological complexities, in addition to the pervasive hostility expressed via racism, misogyny, and different types of hate. “I’m sure I did every part proper… I even smiled. And but, he nonetheless accosted me. Is it due to this husk? Due to how I look?” says a confused Vel as she grapples with why sure folks take a look at and deal with her a sure method.
The Infinite Husk’s Ambition is Annoyingly Imprecise and Plotholed
The Infinite Husk tries to be very sensible in its storytelling by tying up any unfastened ends of the husks (in any case, a “lacking” individual wouldn’t merely be roaming the streets unnoticed) and by emphasizing the unease of inhabiting one other physique. Nevertheless, the movie fails to use this similar rigor to its central conceit: the notion that creativeness is merely one other container for actuality. Disadvantaged of the readability it grants its smaller particulars, the thought drifts, leaving the narrative unfocused and wayward. Viewers are pressured to make sense of the function of language on this equation. Mauro’s research entails transcribing his alien language, which can doubtlessly grant people the ability to form their very own actuality, on the premise that human thought is intrinsically sure to language: “the outline of the factor turns into the factor,” as he places it.
None of that is ever meaningfully resolved, neither is any rationalization provided for the meat between the higher-ups of a supposedly superior alien species and ideas as primary as language and creativeness. Our two most important characters mainly spend 100 minutes merely buying and selling in mutual disdain for human life and people round them. When they don’t seem to be doing so, they theorize a couple of supposed method behind this language–actuality connection, one whose sensible software is rarely defined. Any assumption that this information is meant to profit humanity is betrayed by the aliens’ persistent longing to return house; it is a technique of escape, moderately than enlightenment.
One other drawback with The Infinite Husk is its pretense of celebrating a species’ flawed magnificence whereas remaining unapologetically pessimistic. Though the movie repeatedly foregrounds humanity’s capability for hate and violence, it additionally acknowledges via Vel’s first-person narration that hostility, together with betrayal, is just not inherent to the human race. For some purpose, the movie deems it pointless to redeem the pessimism that permeates each layer of its development, barely disguising it. What else might justify an setting steeped in darkness, the place almost everybody Vel meets seems constructed to signify humanity at its most merciless? A single, real act of kindness might need been sufficient to complicate this worldview and counsel what humanity is able to past cruelty.
Even a repeating piano ostinato that bears prison similarity to Hans Zimmer’s “Cornfield Chase” in Interstellar fails to evoke the transcendently hopeful feeling the 2014 movie as soon as did.Nolan understood the impact of time and what it steals from life; Silverstine clearly would not, as he treats humanity at arm’s size in The Infinite Husk.
- Launch Date
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March 8, 2025
- Runtime
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107 minutes
- Director
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Aaron Silverstein
- Writers
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Aaron Silverstein
