The film centres on Karsh (Cassel), a businessman who is similarly grieving the death of his wife. Karsh's company is called Grave Tech and offers tech burial shrouds which allow family members to view their dead loved ones in real time as their body decays in their grave, via a live feed on their phone and on the gravestone monument.
To begin the film, 4 years after his wife has died, Karsh takes a lady he appears to be dating to look at his wife's grave and view the inside of the coffin via the technology, which is actually, amongst all this, a fairly dark comic moment. Needless to say, we don't see much of her again! What we do see a lot of is Karsh wrestling with grief and desperation, full of love still for his deceased wife.
There's also paranoia thrown in the mix as the story gets rather complex and Karsh tries to explore the possibility that the doctor, who was in charge of his wife's case and dealing with her amputations as the cancer took hold, was actually planting something in her bones and experimenting - with, or without her consent.
Diane Kruger plays his wife, Becca, in the coffin, but also via various flashback scenes and fantasy situations conjured up by Karsh's imagination as he deals with the psychological impact of his grief. She appears to him (mostly naked) with various limbs missing (enter the body horror bit) as he imagines scenes through his obsession where they talk together and on one occasion try to make love before a rather shocking halt!
Kruger, just to complicate things further, also plays Becca's identical twin sister Terry, very much alive but very different to Becca. She is open-minded and a bit of a free spirit as she deals harshly with her tech-savvy husband Maury (played by Guy Pearce). Maury has helped Karsh to set all the tech stuff up and is the man he goes to when needing tech help. He's bitter and twisted about the fact that Terry doesn't want to be with him any longer - and is deeply impacted by the fear that she wants to now be with Karsh.
It all gets even more complex as a Korean lady, Soo-Min (played by Sandrine Holt), with no eyesight, turns up offering Karsh pots of money to start a similar graveyard in Hungary. He has plans to build these across the globe including, significantly for the plot, in Iceland. Karsh, not having shown any interest in a relationship since the loss of his wife, starts to unravel details from the medics involved with her care, fuelled by encouragement by Terry, and begins to explore sexually driven emotion again - eventually bedding Terry and Soo-Min. No, not at the same time!
I'll stop with the plot there and leave you to enjoy the reveals as they come along, nicely paced as they are. It's pretty complex but pay attention and it all makes sense, littered with Cronenberg-style elements throughout. It's very well shot, superbly acted by the whole cast, particularly the two leads, and remains dark any mysterious throughout. Almost art-house in style too.
The focus is very much on a man's deep love for his wife, the emotion in grief and how he deals with this loss - until the unfolding thriller elements arrive. A love story at the core, very sad and moving in many ways but certainly also an outpouring of real-life sadness and reflection by a director with the means to turn it into art. Highly recommended from me - it's available on various streaming services now.
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