Vortex (2021 film)

The film tells the story of an old married couple lived in an apartment - a distinguished author and a retired psychiatrist. The couple, due to age and diseases, primarily his heart condition and her dementia, begins to move away from each other and gradually loses contact with reality as the film screen splits into two separately between them. The husband, not allowing information about his wife's condition, tries to focus on finishing another book about cinema and dreams despite his condition.

The couple's son and grandson, Stéphane and Kiki, who lives separately, hardly adjusts his own life and does not always find time to help his parents but to begged them to stay in the apartment for her, but the husband did not want to sell their apartment for Stéphane due to their problems. Claire, his former lover, reconciles him for the first time and deals with them from their diseases.

When the book remains unfinished, the husband's condition deteriorated slowly, falling into the ground and faints. In the morning, the wife did not notice her husband is asleep, but Stéphane rushes him to the hospital with her mother; the husband did not make it in time as the left screen fades to white. Stéphane becomes emotional and embraces her deeply on her lap. Back in the apartment, Stéphane began to smoke while his mother takes out all the medication pills into the bathroom.

Without knowing her son, the wife dies peacefully in the bed. In the funeral, Stéphane dedicates her burial for giving the last months between the couple, showing their pictures from over the years as memories. At the end of the film, it requires still images where the couple's important things began to move away, left it emptied in the apartment, implied that Stéphane and Kiki are no longer lived in without them. The film is dedicated to the picture of younger husband (1940-2020) and wife (1944-2020).

• Dario Argento as himself, referred as "Lui" which translates to as "father" or "husband".
• Françoise Lebrun as herself, referred as "Elle" which translates to as "mother" or "wife".
• Alex Lutz as Stéphane
• Kylian Dheret as Kiki
• Kamel Benchemekh as L'épicier
• Corinne Bruand as Claire

Noe drew inspirations from his mother's dementia for the film.

Vortex was conceived after some of the inspiration for the film came from his experiences dealing with his mother’s dementia, as well as Noé being diagnosed with a brain hemorrhage that almost killed him in early 2020.[11][12] In his first leading role, Argento, who lives in Italy, learned to speak in fluent but heavily accented French, sometimes pausing and fumbling to find the right word.[13] Noé persuaded Argento to play the role by showing him his film Love, which contains plenty of unsimulated sex scenes. Argento was shocked and thought Noé was asking him for a movie. However, he agreed to join the next film after hearing about the idea for the film.[14]

The film uses both split-screen and medium format, much like his previous film Lux Æterna (2019).[15] The film was completed in post-production at an exceptionally fast pace; Noé began working on the script in February, filming took place set in northeast Paris, near the Stalingrad Station,[16] between April and May, and the film was ready in July 2021. The dialogue in the film is completely improvised despite using the screenplay from Noe; the screen is divided into two parts between the couple.[17]

In August 2021, the film sold to Utopia for US distribution.[18] It was released at the IFC Center on 29 April 2022, followed by an expansion to the rest of the US on 6 May 2022.[19]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes calculated a 93% approval rating from 89 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10, making it Noé's first film to earn a "Certified Fresh" rating for Rotten Tomatoes. The website's consensus reads, "Vortex is Gaspar Noé at his most unflinchingly pitiless -- but viewers who can make it through will be rewarded with a haunting contemplation of death."[20] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100 from 29 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[21] It holds the highest-rated critic scores for Gaspar Noé's films on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

Justin Chang, a top critic of the Los Angeles Times, praised the film and noted: "It’s a bone-deep sensory immersion that never feels merely sensationalist, anchored by two performances of astonishing commitment and emotional power."[22] Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com gave a perfect four out of four stars and noted: "One leaves Vortex feeling cleansed by fire."[23]

• Vortex at IMDb