Bodyhackers

For his English-language debut, Angola-born writer-director Carlos Conceição (Tommy Guns, ND/NF 2023) deploys Cronenbergian body horror and a moody, noir-inflected aesthetic to darkly satirical ends, skewering the capitalist obsession with commodifying the body, and indicting the culture’s complacency in enforcing artificial beauty standards. Denver Blake (McCaul Lombardi), an anti-corporate activist working to uncover the cosmetics industry’s nefarious secrets, is knocked off his axis when he meets Renée (Joana Ribeiro), a perfectionistic dancer who confides in him about an all-consuming compulsion to “improve” her body with endless surgical and quasi-therapeutic interventions. Smitten and fascinated, Blake follows her through the looking glass into a cult-like, erotically charged underworld of black-market body modification, where he soon falls under the spell of Renée’s charismatic plastic surgeon, Dr. Pollard (Elina Löwensohn), whom Blake fears might not have her patient’s best interests at heart.