Divinity (2023)
Directed & Written by Eddie Alcazar
Starring Stephen Dorff, Bella Thorne, Scott Bakula, Caylee Cowan, Moises Arias, Michael O’Hearn, Karrueche Tran, Emily Willis, & Jason Genao.

Sci-Fi / Thriller

★★★★1/2 (out of ★★★★★)

DISCLAIMER:
The following essay
contains SPOILERS!
You’ve been warned.

Each year without fail Fantasia introduces me to something totally unique, whether an innovative short or an absolutely wild feature, and at Fantasia 2023 it was the madness of Divinity that provided me with a totally insane experience. Eddie Alcazar’s sci-fi thriller is about a futuristic world in which immortality is attainable by way of a product named Divinity, originally imagined by Sterling Pierce (Scott Bakula) and later commodified for the masses by his son Jaxxon (Stephen Dorff). There’s also a 97% rate of infertility on Earth, so while people can live forever, there are a lot less new lives starting. Two mysterious brothers (Moises Arias & Jason Genao) arrive on Earth one day to take Jaxxon hostage in an effort to wake him up to the realities of how Divinity’s ruined the world.

Alcazar’s film is a prophetic vision of a world focused too deeply, and detrimentally, on trying not to age and on superficially beautiful bodies while using up and discarding other bodies seen as commodities. The really haunting part of Divinity is the way it envisions a monstrous future determined by our human love of capitalist extraction. The way Jaxxon expands upon his father’s work and how it devastates the world—most horrifically, women—encompasses so much of how capitalist extraction has destroyed more than the Earth, it has ravaged human society and the human body, too. Alcazar’s chilling sci-fi future is monstrous and surreal, yet not so far off from where the ugliest parts of the human soul are already driving us today.
The product Divinity is essentially the Fountain of Youth as a futuristic commodity, and Alcazar features a whole lot of commodification throughout the film to bolster the story’s main narrative. The most prominent commercial comes at the start, as Jaxxon himself appears on the TV set to talk about his product’s “miracle anti–aging ingredients” and how it reduces “the formation of decay” with “lifetime protection.” It’s like a skincare commercial we’d see nowadays, except for a solution to mortality. There’s an additional layer since the ad features all sorts of muscular, supposedly ‘perfect’ bodies, like that of Jaxxon’s brother, Rip (Michael O’Hearn). Divinity’s effects don’t just work to keep you living forever, they’re meant to make you smart and keep you in perfect shape.
Later once the two alien brothers arrive at Jaxxon’s house to take him hostage, they watch television and get bombarded with wall-to-wall ads. They see an escort service advertised, then there’s everything from a Frosted Flexies cereal commercial which features a “free Divinity sample” in every box, to a VR masturbation sleep aid for those who can’t get a good night’s rest. In these futuristic ads, we witness capitalism’s constant creation of new desires, new needs, and the commodities to satisfy them.

Jaxxon’s father Sterling, the one who originally discovered/created what later came to be Divinity, was worried about how long such a Fountain of Youth could last: “Whether or not it‘s sustainable, that‘s what keeps me up at night.” We also hear from Sterling about the side effect of “mental deterioration” that comes along with Divinity’s positive effects, which was why he wasn’t going forward with human trials. Sterling’s worries about sustainability were ignored by Jaxxon after the son took over in the wake of dad’s death. His lack of concern for sustainability works as a sci-fi allegory relaying how the fears of unsustainable practices are constantly being ignored by those with power/wealth in our society currently. Similarly, around the mid-to-late-1970s, Exxon knew climate change was real, they funded the research themselves, yet tossed off concerns about sustainability, not to mention ethics, for profit, just like Jaxxon. The story of Jaxxon’s capitalist greed combined with capitalist extraction is a futuristic mirror of our society right now, and how he creates Divinity is a dark elaboration of how we already treat women/their bodies under capitalism.
When a video of Jaxxon reveals his method of procuring the special raw materials necessary to make Divinity the commodification of women, particularly their bodies, becomes the site of horrific futuristic extraction. Jaxxon explains the need for “mental control compounds” to ensure the cooperation of required hosts. Divinity ultimately necessitates the subjugation of women in order to be produced. Jaxxon believes the ends justify the means, even if that equates to the virtual enslavement of fertile women. Part of Jaxxon’s problem are his daddy issues. He says in a video at one point: “My father was a bright man with a weak body . . . a weak man with a dream.” And, like so many powerful, wealthy men in real life, Jaxxon’s daddy issues went on to negatively affect the entire planet.
The way Divinity requires the consumption of women to create more commodities links to the escort, Nikita (Karrueche Tran), and an exploitative commodification of women via sex work. Nikita tells the brothers “Consume me,” as they eat all sorts of rich food prior to getting naked together and having sex. While sex work is, for some, a choice, Nikita mentions being sent to all sorts of creepy places, which indicates she’s basically another employee under capitalism, and choices concerning her body are not necessarily all her own.

One thing about immortality is that when those who have the power and wealth in society also have the keys to immortality—which are, y’know, usually just power and wealth in general—the world itself still ages because the same ethics, or lack thereof, the same hegemonic structures, the same values continue to rule. And those who hold power are always those who create “an imbalance of life” in many different social, economic, and political ways. Divinity reserves hope that there’s potential for people to fight against capitalism and its terrors, though it’s equally cynical, too. The women of Divinity are hopes for the future, however, the film seems to partly suggest that human beings are incapable of saving themselves, at least without a terrifying, near-catastrophic urge for change.