Utopia Distribution
MOVIE REVIEW
Vortex (2021)
Gaspar Noé has gotten moodier with age, but “Climax” felt like a soulless artistic exercise. The death of his mother, Nora Murphy, and his own battle with a brain hemorrhage apparently have had a profound effect on his follow-up, “Vortex,” at least thematically. To be quite frank, the screenplay of the new film may be just as threadbare as the last, but at least Mr. Noé here deploys split-screen that sustains the viewers’ attention more successfully than one single continuous shot.