Going off on vacation to a cabin, three young women meet new people, party, and end up trying out a new device that sends them on a whole other kind of trip.
Written and directed by Miguel Llansó, the film starts off as a typical young woman goes on vacation with her friends. It gives off the right vacation vibes, sets things up just right, then enter Dr. Mindfulness and his device that looks like a gas mask. From here, things go weird, they go odd, they go trippy, in the best of ways possible. The film makes the transition from vacation vibes to trippy seamlessly, making the story advance in logical ways (while bringing the viewers a few odd moments), letting the characters evolve in the right ways for each of them. The decisions made may be a bit foolish in the long run, but they make sense in terms of vacationing and meeting new people, taking risks, experiencing new things. The film creates these characters that are realistic and, like them or not, human.
Helping create these characters are the cast including Hannah Gross, Johanna Rosin, Teele Kaljuvee-O’Brock and all the talented bunch supporting them. The film’s cast here is solid through and through, giving viewers more than an odd film about a trip-inducing device messing with young women, the create a group of characters you can care about (or heavily dislike in some cases). The ensemble here is so strong, it’s difficult to pinpoint anyone better than the rest. That being said, the leading 3 young women are fantastic in their parts, giving the viewer so much, getting the viewer involved in the action and trippy goodness.
Surrounding these lovely performances, the images created by cinematographer Israel Seoane (and team) run the gamut from happy vacation relaxing vibes to ohmygodwtfishappening vibes. The images in the trippy sequences are particularly lovely, with some just looking like art pieces created for this. Of course, these come down more to the CGI and computer arts department and make one wish that they are indeed CGI and not AI (no one is credited for these on the IMDB page). These images look great as do the ones when they women take off the device and we get to see the remnants of the devices’ effects on them float into the area they are in. The CGI looks fantastic, and the cinematography helps the whole film look as best as it can.
Infinite Summer does the exact right thing from the start, setting up that perfect vacation vibe before introducing new characters and then the devices that cause everything to change. The pacing here is just right, the acting solid, the writing and direction on point, all creating a fantastic film to watch.
This year the Fantasia International Film Festival runs in Montreal from July 18th to August 4th.