I think I knew this was going to be overblown Cronenberg fan boy drivel but Kristen Stewart so I pushed on through to a 9.45pm fourth film of the day sold out screening. I was lulled occasionally by KStew and the always mesmerising Léa Seydoux and stuck it through to its trite ending.

A big contingent of boys loved it, judging by the timbre of the laughs, and it had some very wry lines and a tongue in cheek nostalgic charm for any fan of David Cronenberg. Viggo Mortensen channels an asthmatic Aragorn in black cloak and pointy hood as performance artist Saul Tenser, grunting his lines as if he went to the Skarsgard The Northman school of acting. Seydoux is dewy and a suitable muse without much of a story of her own. Stewart is a delight as awkward buttoned up bureaucrat Timlin who is much more than she seems but doesn’t get nearly enough screen time

There’s a fair bit made about the body horror, with warnings about graphic scenes of surgery but it all seems pretty stagey and distinctly devoid of blood and gore. Mortensen having his breakfast in his feeding chair is just asking for a Bad Lip Reading parody

Cronenberg seems to be giving us a bleak view of our future where pain is pleasure, surgery is the new sex and environmental destruction becomes our bread and butter. Equal parts worthy and shocking but I couldn’t help noticing the future, according to Cronenberg, is very white and heteronormative. The technicians stripping off in the Sark and Seydoux’s giggly reaction was the final red flag that Cronenberg hasn’t evolved since the 80s.

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Have you seen this film? Let me know your thoughts.