‘Infinity Pool’ Ending Explained: What Does “White-Sand Brain Death” Mean?

Brandon Cronenberg’s twisted horror film, Infinity Pool, is now streaming on Hulu, which means audiences can now watch the NC-17 movie that shocked Sundance attendees from the comfort of their homes.

Written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg—who is the son of renowned body horror director David Cronenberg—Infinity Pool is a sci-fi horror fest starring Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, and Cleopatra Coleman on a resort vacation from hell. This movie includes deformed masks, breastfeeding, drugged-up orgies, and lots of blood. But, like many sci-fi horror flicks, it also includes enigmatic symbolism and social commentary that some viewers may find confusing.

Don’t worry, because Decider is here to help. Read on for our breakdown of the Infinity Pool plot summary, the Infinity Pool ending, and the Infinity Pool meaning—including an analysis of what the phrase “white-sand brain death” means.

Infinity Pool plot summary:

James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) goes on a resort vacation with his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) in the fictional country of Li Tolqa. James, a novelist, is hoping for inspiration after a long bout of writer’s block. He has a strained relationship with his wife, the daughter of a rich media mogul who funds James’s “writing” lifestyle. At the resort, a pretty blonde woman named Gabi (Mia Goth) approaches James and confesses she’s a fan. James is flattered, and convinces Em to spend a day with Gabi and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert) outside of the resort. Em is reluctant, as resort guests are not permitted to leave the grounds, due to the dangerous nature of the impoverished Li Tolqa natives. But she agrees to go.

The foursome spends a day at the beach, and James gets an unexpected handjob from Gabi. Score! James offers to drive on the way back because Alban is too drunk to drive his rental car. While driving, the rental’s headlights flicker out, and James hits and kills a farmer crossing the road. James and Em want to call the police, but Gabi and Alban convince them that because the country is so corrupt, calling the authorities is too risky. They flee the scene.

The next morning, James is arrested and taken to the police station. He is told that his wife, Gabi, and Alban have already been interrogated and that they have testified that James hit and killed a farmer while driving under the influence. The lead detective, Detective Thresh (Thomas Kretschmann), informs James that the legal punishment for his crime is execution at the hand of his victim’s 13-year-old son. However, Detective Thresh says that if James pays a large sum of money, the authorities will clone James. Then “the double” will be executed instead, and James can go home alive and free.

James agrees to be cloned. The procedure is a success. James and Em are forced to watch as a 13-year-old boy stabs and kills a James clone. Then they are sent back to the resort. Em, very reasonably, wants to fly home immediately, but James can’t find his passport. He extends his stay at the hotel for a week (using Em’s credit card, of course). He accepts an invitation to dinner with Gabi and Alban, where he meets a group of rich, Western tourists who have all been through the same experience as James: They committed a minor crime in Li Tolqa, and paid to have their double executed for it. Like James, they found it exhilarating. Now they return to Li Tolqa every year, have orgies, commit heinous crimes, and pay to have their doubles executed.

Em flies home. James has fun doing drugs, having sex, and committing violent crimes with the rich tourists. However, after the tourist prank James into beating up and pissing on his own clone—whom James thought was Detective Thresh—James decides he’s had enough. He retrieves his passport from under the toilet. Wait, what? Yes, that’s right, James intentionally hid his passport. He never actually wanted to go home until now.

Infinity Pool ending explained:

James attempts to take the shuttle to the airport, but Gabi and the other tourists hold the bus up at gunpoint until James agrees to come with them. Gabi forces James to walk in front of her car at gunpoint, while she reveals she never read his book and never respected him as a person. She tortures James by reading aloud from a scathing review of his book, which reveals James is not a good writer. James flees, but not before Gabi shoots him in the leg.

James stumbles onto a farm, where he is taken in by kind locals. It’s not clear if this is the same family of the farmer James killed or not. But Gabi and the other tourists find James. Gabi presents James with what she calls “the dog,” which is yet another clone of James, who has gone feral. (This is possibly the same clone that James beat up and peed on earlier in the film.) Gabi gives James a knife and orders him to sacrifice “the dog.” James refuses. Then the dog attacks James, and James beats his own clone’s face in. James beats his clone to death. James starts crying when he realizes what he’s done. Gabi rushes to comfort James. She cradles him in her arms and encourages him to “breastfeed” by sucking blood off of her nipple like a baby.

After that, the tourists pack up for the airport and head home as if everything is normal. James goes with them but is clearly disturbed by their ability to go back to everyday small talk. In the end, James doesn’t get on his plane. Instead, he stays at the resort in the rainy season. The infinity pool that Gabi mentioned earlier in the film begins to flood. The final shot shows James sitting in a lounge chair, as he is absolutely soaked by torrential rain.

Infinity Pool explained with analysis:

Infinity Pool is a movie about hating yourself, killing yourself, and being reborn into the world. (Or at least, that was my interpretation of the film. Yours may be different!) At the beginning of the movie, James is unsatisfied with his vacation. He hates the resort and the people in it. But, as we soon learn, the person James really hates is himself. As the review read by Mia Goth suggests, he knows he’s a terrible writer. He doesn’t feel he deserves peace and luxury. He wants to see himself punished. But he is also a coward.

The body double executions provide James with a way to see himself punished, without actually facing any of the negative consequences himself. However, when he is the one who beats up his own double—when he is forced to confront the idea that it is him who is hurting himself, rather than an outside force he can blame—he gets scared. He tries to run. But his self-hatred—his yearning for self-destruction—catches up with him. He does kill himself in the end, when he kills his clone “dog.” The scene where he breastfeeds on Mia Goth symbolizes James being reborn. Yet he can’t bring himself to return to the normal world. I admit, I’m not sure what that’s about. Maybe James can’t bear to live with the knowledge of what he’s done.

Then of, course, there is the commentary on the grotesque, consumptive nature of resort tourism. We’re presented with the idea that the Li Tolqa locals are dangerous, but it’s the rich tourists that are dangerous in the end, and it’s the poor, local family who takes care of James. In an interview with IndieWire, writer-director Brandon Cronenberg said, “The setting is used in no small part to talk about the ways human psychology can mutate and animalistic violence can resurface in the context of not having responsibilities. This contained, almost Disneyland mirror of reality that’s contained in the bubble of a resort setting is very weird and grotesque to me. It’s really like you’re not visiting a country. You’re visiting an alternate dimension across the country or a tourist nation across the world.”

What does “You can’t feed yourself with white-sand brain death?” in Infinity Pool mean?

“You can’t feed yourself with white-sand brain death,” is a phrase James utters in his sleep and serves as the very first line of the movie. Again, your interpretation may vary, but to me, that means that James was hungry for something that he couldn’t get from a mindless, white-sand resort vacation, aka “white-sand brain death.” James didn’t want to turn off his mind and relax, he wanted to challenge himself. He wanted to punish himself. And, for better or worse, that’s ultimately what James got.