Antiviral

Synopsis: Syd March is an employee at a clinic that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to obsessed fans. Biological communion - for a price. Syd also supplies illegal samples of these viruses to piracy groups, smuggling them from the clinic in his own body. When he becomes infected with the disease that kills super sensation Hannah Geist, Syd becomes a target for collectors and rabid fans. He must unravel the mystery surrounding her death before he suffers the same fate.
Director(s): Brandon Cronenberg
Production: IFC
  4 wins & 11 nominations.
 
IMDB:
5.7
Metacritic:
55
Rotten Tomatoes:
64%
NOT RATED
Year:
2012
108 min
Website
790 Views


Yes.

Yes, wonderful.

I'll transfer you to booking.

Can I help you?

Edward Porris.

- I... I have an appointment.

- Porris.

Just have a seat.

Hannah Geist?

Excuse me?

You look like a Hannah Geist.

I'd take you for a Hannah Geist.

Oh. Yes.

Well, most people are.

I'm here for Michael Felix.

Do you know

he used to torment his lovers

by packing his foreskin with spices

before intercourse?

I'm just lucky they got to him

before the execution. I'm real lucky.

I'll take this one.

Breathtaking.

I understand your fascination with her.

I understand completely.

She's perfect somehow, isn't she?

More than perfect.

More than human.

Her eyes seem to reach...

...right beneath your skin

and touch your organs.

And touch your stomach.

Your lungs.

Gives me the shivers.

As you can see,

we have several options available.

Each was acquired

from Miss Geist directly.

If I thought your interest

was only passing,

there are any number

of low-end packages I could offer.

However you strike me as a man

whose involvement

runs a little deeper than that.

I see you... as a man of taste.

A connoisseur.

If you'll permit me

to make a recommendation.

S-558.

Expensive...

but a must-have for the truly devoted.

Miss Geist was afflicted

during her much publicised affair

with Laura Law in 2003.

We purchased it from her soon after.

- S-558?

- Yes.

A form of the herpes simplex virus.

After infection, the virus lives on

in the cells of its host

for the rest of their life.

Did you know she's deformed?

You can't tell from the magazines.

She has to have

special underwear made.

Fashion designers

make her special underwear.

I've heard that.

Do you have your credit card

with you, Mr Porris?

Which side do you want it on?

I haven't decided.

Most people want it on the left side.

If she kissed you,

it would be on the left side.

If she kissed me?

Miss Geist is infected here,

to the right of her mouth.

Now, if she kissed you,

it'd spread to your left side,

around here.

On the left, it'd be like

she gave it to you in person.

Oh, yes, I'd like the left side.

Lean back, please.

Just a little pinch.

There.

You should be showing

in a couple of weeks.

Enjoy.

Are you carrying

any infectious materials with you

or items belonging to The Lucas Clinic

Incorporated or its suppliers?

No.

Now, I thought a fungus was a plant

because it comes from vegetables, right?

I told them this gives new meaning...

Yeah, come in.

Apparently I'm no biologist. Some of our

viewers were quick to point that out.

I wanted to ask

about the alarm test tomorrow.

There's nothing I can do about it.

I don't like it either,

but it's the law.

No, I know, but...

...it's just that I'm sick right now

and I need my sleep.

Yeah. OK, so, listen,

I'll tell you what we'll do about it.

We'll start at the top floor, so

we won't even get to you until after 11.

It's the Aria Noble Ordeal.

And we'II, you know,

we'll just be in and out.

You can keep your bedroom shut.

The question on everyone's mind is

what is really going on with her?

We're talking to Mr Dorian Lucas,

founder of the Lucas

celebrity services clinic.

Mr Lucas,

how do you respond to critics

who say the disease

you're really selling is a cultural one?

That's ridiculous.

Do you not agree

that the mania surrounding celebrity

is reaching an unhealthy level?

No, I don't.

So these people are really

so deserving of our attention?

In your opinion,

does Aria Noble deserve to be famous?

Let me stop you there.

Deserve to be famous?

What does it mean

to deserve to be famous?

Anyone who's famous

deserves to be famous.

Celebrity is not an accomplishment,

not at all.

It's more like a collaboration

that we choose to take part in.

Celebrities are not people.

They're group hallucinations.

Surely it's naive to imagine

that your clients think the same way.

Really? Naive?

My clients are intelligent adults

from all walks of life, all ages,

and they find meaning

in all the stories around them.

They choose to come to me

because they wanna feel more connected

to those faces, to those people

that they see in the magazines

and on television,

and their lives are much richer for it.

The human face is a powerful messenger.

Our brains are tuned

to its every nuance.

The smallest shift

in its musculature

can translate itself

into complex nonverbal information,

so subtle and communicated so quickly

that we often don't even register it,

not consciously.

One could say that for human beings,

the face is a structure

with a high-information resolution.

The ReadyFace console is designed

to engage the user's

unconscious mental resources

by exploiting the brain's sensitivity

to facial patterns.

Our technician

loads a virus sample into the port,

where it's analysed by ReadyFace

and is translated into a face graphic.

This image represents

the structure of the disease.

It is in a sense the face of the virus,

dense with information.

As Mr March manipulates the graphic,

the machine manipulates the virus

in the sample container,

eventually rendering it noncontagious.

This advanced form of copy protection

affords us control

over the distribution of our products,

as the virus cannot spread

beyond the infected client.

ReadyFace fluidly incorporates

our technician's

unconscious mental resources

so that copy protecting

a sample like this one

will take hours rather than days.

Hey, thanks for coming.

Lovely to see you.

- Enjoyed it.

- Thank you.

Thanks for making the time.

Appreciate it.

No, she has to have special underwear

made because she doesn't have a vulva.

She was born without a vulva.

Her father used to make them,

which was an ordeal for her as a child,

but now she has fashion designers do it.

That's what she meant when she told

Spot Magazineshe doesn't have a face.

- Listen to what you're saying.

- You asked me, so I'm telling you.

You're telling me

you've been working here too long.

You're seriously buying into all this.

What's to buy into?

What I'm saying is factual.

Factual? Yesterday her birth defect

was a unique, nonfunctional organ

connected to her urinary system.

It's worth millions

on the celebrity meat market.

Yeah, also true.

I'm sure the kid could shed some light

on the situation.

Didn't you take a genital wart sample

from Hannah Geist once?

- That was Derek.

- Did he mention if she had a vulva?

We're doing lunch at Dainty Davis.

You coming?

I already ate.

You look like sh*t.

- Hi, Michelle.

- Hey, Syd. What can I get for you?

- 915?

- The new Aria Noble flu.

We got it this morning.

So we did.

Thank you.

Derek.

I understand

your fascination with her.

I understand completely. She's...

...perfect somehow, isn't she?

More than perfect.

An ideal.

Overwhelming.

With a whisper, she could have

anything she wanted.

Anyone she wanted.

I'm happy to inform you that we have

something special available today.

It just came in this morning.

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Brandon Cronenberg

Brandon Cronenberg (born circa 1980) is a Canadian writer and film director. He is the son of Carolyn (née Zeifman) and acclaimed director David Cronenberg. He is of Jewish descent. He studied film at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. He initially considered himself to be a "book nerd" growing up, who was interested in becoming a writer, painter or musician. He came to realize that film contained all those elements and attended film school.His first feature film Antiviral debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. Cronenberg re-edited the movie after the festival to make it tighter, trimming nearly six minutes out of the film. The revised film was first shown at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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