Our take
Vortex, Gaspar Noé’s haunting exploration of death and dementia, begins with a dedication: “to all those whose brains will decompose before their hearts.” The statement sets the heartwrenching tone of the film, which follows an elderly couple—one with dementia and the other with a heart ailment—during their last days together. Noé cleverly depicts all this in a split-screen design, which evokes the fractured pattern of old-age thought.
Noé’s mother struggled with dementia, and Noé’ himself suffered from a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him, so Vortex is clearly a personal film. But even without knowing this, Vortex feels effortlessly dear and deeply intimate, like it could’ve only been done by a person with a first-hand experience of this tragedy. At once personal and universal, Vortex is a haunting and inventive ode to love, death, and everything in between.
The story
Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.
Elsewhere
"A relentlessly realistic horror story, and its primary horrors are the infirmities and indignities of old age."
— Richard Brody
"A tough watch – and not always in the way the director intends."
— Adam Woodward
The details
Streaming arrival
Who picked it
Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.
