It's the story of a strange resort in a fictitious country which seemingly locks their guests within their compound because it's too dangerous to roam outside because of poverty, crime, no consequences and a breakdown of civilised society. (I seem to remember my sister telling me that they had to do this when they visited Cuba some years back.) Our two main characters, James Foster, played by Alexander Skarsgård (The Legend of Tarzan, True Blood) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) have headed off there to get away from it all.
He is a writer, with one book under his belt, but has suffered with Writer's Block since it was published 6 years prior. He's looking for inspiration. James is not wealthy and Em's family are loaded. Her dad doesn't like James so Em purposely married him to get back at him. So there's that bubbling agenda eating away at their relationship to start with - and we haven't even got to the story yet! When they arrive, they bump into Gabi Bauer, played by Mia Goth (Pearl, X, MaXXXine), and her husband, Alban, played by Jalil Lespert. Gabi flirts with James telling him what a fan she was of his book and the four of them start doing 'couply' things together.
One day, Alban and Gabi have arranged to borrow a car from a friend and the four of them head off to an isolated beach/cove, even though they have been warned to not go out of the compound. They have a great day, Gabi flirts even more with James, then, he being the only one sober enough to drive, takes the wheel. On the way back to the compound there's a major incident on which the story turns, as they run into and kill a local farmer. Next thing we know is the following morning, police banging on the door and James and Em being dragged off to the local nick!
And this is where the story turns on its head into something otherworldly and bizarre as we learn what the resort of La Tolqa is, and what goes on there, all previous, suddenly up in the air. At this point it's hard to go on without spoilers, so to quote IMDb, we start to see the resort's perverse subculture of hedonistic tourism, reckless violence and surreal horrors. The boundaries of identity and morality are blurred through a gruesome kinda sci-fi loophole. Just one teaser for you, it seems that the local law requires "an eye for an eye" when wrong is done one to another, so someone is looking for just that! But it's not quite as simple as that and again the story switches towards the surreal and bonkers territory as we find out about a 'loophole' for wealthy tourists to wriggle out of the barbaric revenge culture!
We then have a long section of the film where the above is played out, tripping on drugs, mindless violence, executions, a bunch of sci-fi stuff, memory-meddling and all sorts of nudity, orgies and horror. At this point, the film is often presents in a surreal 1960s trippy fashion! As time goes on, James gets into what is going on but Em is scared shitless, so opts, eventually, to leave. This leaves James to pursue the experience with Gabi, Alban - and a group of other similarly-wealthy tourists, which gets more and more bizarre.
Eventually, James starts to question it all and tries to pull himself out and away from what's going on around him. But by this stage, it seems like it might be too late! There's lots of symbolism yet to play out and the climax of the story and finale are actually quite surprising as all is revealed, the vacation ends and rainy season arrives!
We certainly see plenty of nudity, gore and violence in the film but the actors seem to do a good-enough job to work with the whacky material involved. Mia Goth stands out as the sultry seductress turning into homicidal maniac at times, nurturing friend and lover at others. Skarsgård plays the lead convincingly, moving from initial apathy to horror to enjoyment and back to horror and apathy, looping. It's an interesting set with lovely scenery - and the various special effects done well-enough.
Anyway, be warned - it's completely bonkers and for anyone looking for that, they will be delighted. Seems to be available now on various streaming services. Nutty!
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