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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that we’re all obsessed with cults. Whether it’s because we’re fascinated by their bizarre internal hierarchies or just really convinced we ourselves would never find ourselves ensnared by such a group, we’re all still fascinated by everything that cults stand for. But Seekers of Infinite Love isn’t your standard cult movie. Rather than plumb the depths of a group of indoctrinated followers and the inevitable creeps who lead them, this is a film about a dysfunctional family who must find a way to deal with their own mistakes, regrets, and frustrations in order to save one of their own.
The story follows three grown siblings on a road trip to find their younger sister, who has been brainwashed into joining a doomsday cult known as the Seekers of Infinite Love. Unbeknownst to its followers, the group’s pony-tailed leader (Greg Kinnear) plans to convince them all to participate in a mass suicide event in just a few days, meaning that author Kayla (Hannah Einbinder), lawyer Zach (John Reynolds), and degenerate gambler Wes (Griffin Gluck) must put aside all their own issues to track her down as soon as possible. With some help from an expert cult deprogrammer (Justin Theroux) who has some secrets of his own, the group sets out to track down Scarlett (Justine Lupe), and each is forced to confront many of their own demons and emotional hang-ups along the way.
If this movie sounds a little bit like a slightly more deranged take on Little Miss Sunshine, it’s probably not an accident, and Seekers of Infinite Love is ultimately grounded in the family dynamic at its center.
“It really started with siblings,” writer/director Victoria Strouse tells Den of Geek when asked about the origins of the film at SXSW. “It was wanting to capture that dynamic. I’m utterly fascinated by siblings, and I think some of the complexities in sibling relationships — because everything is so right there on the surface — kind of ends up [speaking] to all human relationships. It’s just that you get to it so much faster, because siblings don’t really lie, or they lie all the time, but in that even there’s a truth. So it started there, and as I was working on it, I became really interested in cults, in this idea of a secondary but corrupt family. And I love a road trip movie, so it all kind of just came together.”
Though it’s primarily a film about a dysfunctional family who are all “seekers of infinite love” in their own ways, the concept of cults — and ways these groups are capable of indoctrinating their members to potentially dangerous ideology — looms large over its story. The film’s cast is seemingly well-versed on the subject, mentioning the UFO-focused Heaven’s Gate, the murderous Manson family, self-help-group-turned-sex-slave-cult NXIVM, and Love Has Won, a group that followed a woman who referred to herself as “Mother God,” as cults they’re knowledgeable about.
But for Theroux, who plays deprogrammer Rick, his approach to building connections is a bit more… immediate.
“I think one of the keys to Rick was that he would get uncomfortably close to people when he would talk to them,” he said. “Just lots of eye contact and touch, like in that scene we were just describing, where we… find out a certain thing, I immediately go to Griffin [the former American Vandal star who plays family hot mess Wes] and start rubbing his back. And unwanted touch is one of my least favorite things in the world, so I knew that I could immediately key into anyone by just touching them gently.”
Whether or not his methods work on Scarlett is a question that only the film itself can answer, but, according to the man who plays him, Rick seems to have a family favorite already.
“There was a lot more of you touching me that got cut out of the movie,” Gluck adds. “It sounds crazy. But this was always a thing that you did anytime we were in a scene together. Cause I’m your…I think Rick sees me as his son.”
“When I was editing, I was like, ‘Wow, he does touch Wes a lot,” Strouse confirms. “But it ended up being one of my favorite unplanned throughlines.”
Seekers of Infinite Love premiered March 12 at the SXSW Film Festival.
The post Seekers of Infinite Love: Hannah Einbinder and Justin Theroux Talk Cults and Uncomfortable Touching appeared first on Den of Geek.
