As the great Lana Del Rey once said, we are born to die – and while she may have had more philosophical reasons for such a bold statement, it does point to the reality that we essentially begin the process of making our way towards our inevitable demise the moment we are born, a bleak and nihilistic concept that nonetheless has been behind many existential crises over the centuries. However. What would happen if we were born and simply did not age, to the point where we lived our entire lives as newborn infants, destined to lack the basic skills or knowledge needed to enjoy life? Somehow, this is an even more harrowing concept, and one that Bob Byington chooses to use as the foundation for Infinity Baby, a wickedly funny existentialist dark comedy in which we follow half a dozen characters in a version of Los Angeles in the not-too-distant future as they make their way through life, being tangentially connected to a company that, through some scientific accident, has managed to create a generation of babies that are not able to age, and who need to find homes where the parents are happy to spend the rest of their lives caring for a child that will remain in a perpetually infant-like state. Amongst the main players include a young man who struggles to commit to any meaningful relationship, and who hires a middle-aged woman to act as his mother so that his soon-to-be ex-girlfriends can be hopelessly denigrated, as well as a gay couple in charge of rehoming these babies, but who decide to scam their employer by adopting the baby for themselves and taking the money, not realising the burden of parenthood until a fatal accident brings them to the threshold of the law. Hilarious and irreverent, but simmering with deeper meaning that is quintessential of the director’s work, Infinity Baby is quite an endeavour, both structurally and in terms of the story with which we are presented – and much like anything he’s done in his illustrative career, Byington challenges conventions in a truly ingenious, subversive and bold manner.

Infinity Baby is a film that takes a short while to fully comprehend, or at least understand its fundamental themes. Byington is not the kind of filmmaker who lays out every idea in vivid detail, and instead requires the viewer to develop their own unique interpretation of these themes, even if they seem blatantly obvious at the outset. This film in particular touches on a few common ideas, and situating it in what is noted as the near future (rather than an alternative reality) allows for some degree of authenticity in how he navigates these conversations. The primary theme is that of gender and the role it plays in society. All of the major characters seem to exist along a particular spectrum, performing gendered roles that society has established as important – the brooding prospective mother-in-law, the middle-aged couple questioning if they want to get married, the rambunctious yuppie who wants to hold onto whatever final vestiges of youth that are still in his grasp. The film questions each one of these archetypes, using them as the foundation for a thrilling and intriguing satire that examines societal expectations and how they can erode the sanity of anyone who finds themselves even vaguely questioning their position in life. By employing clear-cut stereotypes at the start and gradually dismantling them to reveal the complexities beneath, Byington is able to make some profound statements on how life is often defined by some unspoken set of rules, and attempting to question these structures can result in everything being thrown into disarray. Perhaps not the most nuanced or subtle approach to this particular subject, but certainly one that knows how to keep us engaged, Infinity Baby has some tremendously intriguing ideas, concealed under layers of some of the most perverse, provocative humour we could fathom, which is once again a sign of Byington’s incredibly compelling set of talents. 

Considering he is quite a niche director who has resisted the temptation to leap into the mainstream, it’s quite surprising that Byington consistently manages to enlist quite strong casts to lead his films, which is a credit to both his exceptional skills at creating characters and his prowess when it comes to attracting actors of substance. Infinity Baby has an impressive ensemble, each one of these actors being remarkably versatile and talented in their own way, fitting perfectly into the director’s vision and giving him the chance to develop these roles through a collaborative effort. Kieran Culkin – who had yet to have his breakthrough in Succession – leads the film and showcases the same mischievous charm that has made him one of the most engaging actors of his generation, something that is represented perfectly in his performance as this hopelessly immature young man whose fear of commitment is bordering on a psychological issue. Megan Mullally is an absolute riot as the woman he hires to play his mother, and considering so much of the work for which she is primarily known has required her to play some derivative of the ditzy, airheaded klutz she mastered on television, it’s wonderful to see a performance that is outright contradictory to the typecasting to which she is normally subjected. Martin Starr and Kevin Corrigan also play against type, taking on the parts of a pair of conniving scamsters who just so happen to be a couple, and who navigate their own personal struggles while engaging in some serious fraud, which ultimately takes quite a dark turn, leading to the film’s central tension. Scattered performances from Nick Offerman (who makes the most of his commanding presence to play yet another brooding authority figure), Stephen Root and Trieste Kelly Dunn give Infinity Baby a very unique tone that ties everything together and makes it thoroughly compelling in both form and function.

The concept is strong, and the performances are effective, but the aspect that truly allows everything to come together is the approach Byington takes to telling this story, which is driven primarily by the atmosphere. The director’s work is characterised by a perpetually bleak point of view, accompanied by a deadpan sensibility that feels oddly appropriate for the narrative and its themes. This story requires a complexity of spirit that does not lend itself to anything particularly upbeat, but rather darkly comical in a way that actually makes the viewer begin to question whether or not what we are seeing is supposed to be taken seriously, or merely as another series of offbeat ramblings from a director who has made a career out of never quite sticking to what we would expect, but rather going in search of something deeper and far more profound. There’s something quite disquieting about this film – perhaps it’s the stark black-and-white digital photography that is both visually stunning and quite haunting in its simplicity, or the fact that the film leaps so liberally between perspectives that we are forced to make connections through being given only the most ambiguous of cues. Yet, it is still so outrageously engaging even at its most confusing, and Byington clearly relishes in taking us on this unconventional journey that is both enthralling and provocative, and much of this is due to his ability to evoke such intricate, complex themes through the simple, unfurnished execution that have become part of his style, and usually informs so many of the fascinating, daring decisions that he has made as a director over the years.

We can try and ponder his work to our heart’s content, and we’ll still truly never understand the way Byington’s mind functions, which is all part and parcel of his exceptional career, and one of the many reasons he has become such a cherished voice within the niche community of devotees that he has amassed over the years. Infinity Baby is quite an achievement – it doesn’t overstay its welcome (clocking in at an astonishingly brief 70 minutes, which seems like the perfect length of time, even if we do quietly yearn for another couple of hours with these characters), and tells a very simple story that is teeming with complex ideas, some of which may take the form of a series of meandering ramblings, but all ultimately serve a very important purpose, namely providing some degree of existential complexity that informs many of the film’s most unique and daring qualities. Byington is certainly an acquired taste, a director with a penchant for the absurdly bleak and deeply unnerving, which he uses as the core for a hilarious and irreverent dark comedy that touches on universal ideas in a way that is both disconcerting and thoroughly resonant. Brilliantly subversive and disquieting in the most pleasant way imaginable, Infinity Baby is a terrific attempt to challenge the status quo and launch the viewer into a small-scale existential crisis of our own.