Divinity

This is one of those films which I’ve no idea how I came across. It could have been the involvement of Soderbergh (as EP), maybe it was recommended by some algorithm somewhere, I dunno. All I know is it showed up in my list, and I had no memory of the trailer, but the poster and banner on Letterboxd really stood out. So I was super excited back in November to see it was playing at a theater nearby. Due to timing I decided to prioritize Priscilla and Anatomy of a Fall, rationalizing that I could catch Divinity the following weekend.

Well, you may have noticed that it’s not currently November, so my logic was incorrect. Turns out it was only wide for that week, afterwards shrinking down to just seventeen screens nationwide. Which is a damn shame, because while it was gorgeous on my fifty some-odd inch TV, I can’t help but imagine the added grandeur of seeing these visuals on a 32 by 14 foot screen.

Some time in the future, on what looks to be a radically changed Earth, Jaxxon Pierce (Stephen Dorff) has completed the work begun by his father Sterling (Scott Bakula). The product is Divinity, an anti-aging elixir ingested by the vast majority of the population. Two mysterious beings (Moisés Arias and Jason Genao), who take the form of men and whom the credits refer to as Stars, fall to Earth and seek to halt Jaxxon’s distribution of the drug by whatever means necessary, eventually joining forces with sex worker Nikita (Karrueche Tran).

Why in the world would they want to stop this? Well, the culture seems to revolve around instant gratification in a way that would make our current era blush. The advertisements boast that “You’ll be at your peak performance, and fullest potential”, and later show a busty woman giggling girlishly while hawking cereal which contains a Divinity sample inside. This search for easy, no effort perfection has worked, in that it’s transformed most people (at least in Jaxxon’s orbit) into impossible muscle men and model-like women. But the catch is that reproduction is nearly impossible. The cause of that isn’t clear: since everyone’s taking Divinity, it could be a side effect, but Jaxxon also refers to the fertility rate being absurdly low during its development. Which could be the impetus for its creation: if no one’s being born, then one solution to keeping humanity around is to not let anyone die. But it seems to have arrested culture, as we get no indications of an interest in art or any pursuit other than staring at each others bodies. For all these reasons and more, the Stars are committed to putting an end to Divinity.

From the outset, this is an aggressively alienating film which has little interest in clarifying the world to you. Instead, it crafts compelling visuals and ideas and behaviors into a collage that dares you to look away before you’ve gotten any answers. For example, we see the Stars land (in a cool bit of stop-motion) before trekking to Jaxxon’s house to barge in on him and his lover Lynx (Emily Willis) mid-coitus. It takes about twelve minutes of screen time, not only because they wordlessly explore his house and reveal some of its contents to us, but also because we’re switching from them to Jaxxon and Lynx and back, watching as they get distracted and their backgrounds change, dragging out the suspense while composing gorgeous scenes. You slowly piece together what the Stars are doing as you take note of what catches their eye, then spend much of the rest of the film trying to understand why.

There are a bunch of allusions to the idea that Jaxxon is playing God. Sure, the Stars accuse him of it directly. But long before that, we begin with the camera emerging through a mechanical opening clearly styled to look like labia lips. Jaxxon is working on a life-granting elixir, and is pulled away from it by the temptation of sex. The story surrounds two sets of brothers. Hell, even the bottle containing Divinity concentrate is reminiscent of an apple. Humanity has cheated its way into the Garden, and the Stars are here to punish the main enabler with his own creation.

All of this is approached in gorgeously stark black & white, making full use of lighting to cast menacing shadows to obscure this corrupt world. The sets are minimal and stark and brutalist, which help drive home that this is a society unconcerned with aesthetics. They feel strongly influenced by German expressionism, and have a similar sinister vibe. The VFX are pretty damn good, and while they won’t win any awards, they perfectly suit the sensibilities of the film. Especially the climax, which features a number of close ups for reaction shots before jumping out to stop motion for the wide action shots, and keeps flipping back and forth in a nice rhythm.

The story gets a bit lost at times, with diversions that seem at best tangentially related, and their connection further obscured by the opacity of the storytelling. For example, although the assortment of jumpsuit clad women led by Ziva (Bella Thorne) have a clear metaphorical purpose, their narrative purpose is muddy at best. Similarly confused is the ultimate message of the film, especially when released into America in 2023.

And yet, I can’t help but be enthralled by the unique vision on screen, of the fresh approach to heady, adult-oriented sci-fi. It’s not brand new, no, but it feels like a rare approach even amongst arthouse sci-fi. Something about its pastiche of neo-noir, German expressionism, 50s sci-fi stylings, stop-motion, and its refusal to weigh down its dialog with lots of high-minded sayings really just sticks with me. Director Eddie Alcazar is not new to the scene: he’s directed a few features before, the first of which was a decade ago. But I’ll certainly be excited to see where he goes now that he has the support of one of the most important modern directors.