More Feelings #3: Apocalypse Lovers and Apocalypse Friends

In 2020, movies about any version of the world ending felt like predictive texts to be studied. I found myself wanting to revisit Alfonso Cuaron’s CHILDREN OF MEN as well as every rise, dawn, and war of the planet of the apes (one of which surely addressed the use of prepositions in those titles). I ended up rewatching MAD MAX: FURY ROAD twice (!) within the span of one week; For Hyperreal, I wrote about how the beautiful chaos it delivers helped calm me down during a period of heightened uncertainty.

Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film CONTAGION proved to be the apocalyptic rewatch that hit closest to home on a number of levels. Like many people, I streamed it shortly after an extended period of isolation began in March. It was a classic case of “depressed millennial meets Netflix resurgence of a strangely applicable story about a contagious virus transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites.” The first time I saw the film, I was in a movie theater with my family. I remember telling them that I thought it would be nominated for several Oscars. That perception was largely based on the fact that the story featured epidemiologists, government officials, and some civilians with noble intentions trying to combat a global threat. I saw serious people doing serious things on screen, so naturally I anticipated accolades from what I understood to be a very serious Academy.

My 2020 rewatch of the film, which occurred as I was processing how little our government seemed to be cooperating with scientific experts, felt like equal parts satire and premonition. For better or worse, all of those serious people and institutions I’d previously respected by default now seemed to be flailing and on the verge of certain death. The strange thing was that my disillusionment was precisely what made the movie kind of comforting. A soothing bonus was the knowledge that millions of people were probably streaming the film with me. The Netflix algorithm and a global catastrophe that forced us inside had collided to give us something to live tweet. 

Locked Down Feelings

LOCKED DOWN is the kind of movie that is only interesting as a pop culture landmark. It clumsily attempts to be a romantic comedy, a heist film, a marital drama, and a timely pandemic narrative simultaneously; it also illustrates the ways in which we’re struggling for “normalcy.” Given that it was released on HBO Max at the beginning of 2021, the odds were already stacked against it. Most people probably weren’t quite ready to filter the realities of the pandemic through philosophical, romantic, comedic, or pretentiously removed lenses. That’s why it’s fascinating that several people came together and pooled their resources to make this movie a thing. 

The movie stars Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, two extremely beautiful people. They play a couple frustrated by both several weeks of lockdown and their crumbling relationship. It’s pretty difficult to sympathize with their early lockdown fatigue (even though most of us were definitely feeling it a few weeks in) because many more chaotic months have unfolded with no clear path to relief in sight. It’s also hard to imagine that their lavish, spacious home cannot accommodate their mutual need to get some space. 

The plot includes topical things like awkward Zoom calls, conversations with isolated neighbors leaning out of windows and balconies, and….a jewelry heist that makes them fall in love again?! Yes, that is where relationship drama and heightened insecurities about love and money take these two beautiful people. It’s all strange to watch unfold because that kind of salvation feels especially indulgent right now. Amid a global pandemic, this couple finds a way to steal a precious diamond that will let them slip further into their own delusions of why they are good and special. They spend most of the film lamenting their failures to become artists and poets. The reminisce about parties, drugs, drinking, and motorcycle rides. While these are all human impulses, the characters’ expressions of them fall flat given that they still have many resources available to them. In other words, they have the privilege of indulging their malaise and dabbling in crime to feel interesting again. Given that Chiwetel’s character is a Black man with a criminal record who needs a fake I.D. (with the name EDGAR ALLAN POE on it) just to maintain a steady source of income, the pressure put on him by his white partner to follow through with something ultimately much more dangerous for him just feels....gross. It’s too much too soon and maybe wholly unnecessary. It’s also indicative of the kind of pandemic cinema we’ll probably get for a while.

Perfect Sense Feelings

Just like LOCKED DOWN, the 2011 film PERFECT SENSE features extremely beautiful people watching the world fall apart. Ewan McGregor plays a hopelessly single chef and Eva Green plays a hopelessly single epidemiologist. They meet at a time when a mysterious disease begins taking away people’s senses. Smell is the first to go, followed by taste. This immediately impacts Ewan’s character because chefs must intensify flavors and then textures to keep people coming to their restaurants. The film makes some interesting commentary on why people go out to eat in the first place; they still love the ritual, and they even feed each other because it becomes more gratifying to fuel the collective enjoyment of vanishing comforts. 

As she tries to rally the fortitude to study and fight the virus, Eva Green’s character explains that smell is tied to memory. This means that people’s emotional lives begin to fade quickly once that sense disappears. When the two hopelessly single main characters meet and begin to fall in love, they lament not being able to fully take in their partner’s scents and tastes. They can still see and touch each other, but intimacy becomes a bit more removed when the human signals available to be perceived are limited. When their hearing goes, it’s preceded by extreme rage. They say horrible things, act violently, and torture themselves for all of their mistakes before losing the ability to listen to one another.

The tragic sequence of experiencing the most intense emotions possible followed by losing another sense forever plays out in several horrifying and transcendent iterations. People become ravenously hungry and start eating everything in front of them just before never being able to taste again. Before sight goes at the very end of the film, people experience a rush of intense appreciation for everything around them. It’s in this haze of joy that the two main characters walk toward each other, making contact just when they will never be able to fully perceive one another ever again. Touch is all that’s left when the credits roll, and we know that will go, too.

The singledom of both leads is a refreshing aspect of what drives the plot. Some narratives frame the onset of apocalyptic circumstances as a threat to established relationships. This movie asks “What if you haven’t figured out how to embrace and nurture companionship by the time the world ends?” Even though the film feels more like a list of intriguing ideas than a cohesive whole, the emotions of the main characters are compellingly translated by McGregor and Green. They ache on screen in ways that will stick with me, especially as I continue to imagine what forging new bonds will look like in 2021 and beyond. 

Only Feelings

ONLY feels like it was generated by an algorithm. It stars Leslie Odom Jr. from Hamilton and Freida Pinto from SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE as a couple evading a virus that has killed most of the women on the planet. The source of that virus is ash from a comet, a high concept plot device that establishes a world in which women are more precious and therefore in greater danger. This conceit comes across as lazy, reductive, and full of assumptions about how the audience understands the world. It’s already a very dangerous place for so many women in ways that have nothing to do with a virus brought by the residue of a comet. Odom Jr. and Freida Pinto playing the lead roles feels like stunt casting due to uneven filmmaking and a scattered screenplay. While watching them on screen, I felt like the people behind the film just wanted two faces that “mainstream” (white) audiences would recognize to sensationalize the idea of a Black person and a brown person in apocalyptic danger. None of this may be the case in terms of what decisions led to the film’s creation, but nothing in the narrative goes deeper than a flashy trailer would.

If the filmmakers had considered the tremendous talents of the two lead performers and how their characters’ marginalized identities would interact with an even more hostile world, the story could have been something more compelling (even though the premise is shaky). After circulating at some festivals in 2019, the movie came out on Netflix in July of 2020. The editing is sloppy and Freida Pinto’s character feels strangely absent during the film’s first act. The camera literally cuts away from her almost anytime there is a chance to slow down and focus on the person most impacted by what is playing out on screen. The movie is more interested in being “timely” and sensational than being human; it generates a sense of bleakness that feels flat and unearned. The fact that the movie would land with a thud is notable given when it was released. Then again, maybe 2020 was the only time something like this could seem relevant.

It’s a Disaster! Feelings

As a genre, apocalyptic films can be overly serious and depressing. Something about that feels false because, as the current pandemic is proving, people still experience the full spectrum of humanity amid disaster. Enter, IT’S A DISASTER! It’s an apocalyptic story that is condensed, simple, and largely comedic. I was happy to stumble upon it because it has a great cast and script; Julia Stiles and America Ferrera are particularly memorable. The movie asks the important question “What if the world ended while you were just like, at brunch?” 

Friends gather on a sunny day to engage in the kind of ritual with which we’re all familiar. They sit around a table, share food, talk about work, and ultimately navigate some awkward conversation topics. Because the ensemble is allowed to lean into their more absurd instincts, things become heightened even before there is a clear and present threat to their collective safety. Some characters are getting divorced and having trouble announcing it to their friends. Other characters are dealing with the end of an engagement. One person has brought their new partner to meet the friend group; the hope is that this one isn’t a legitimate psychopath like previous dates. There are proposed threesomes, candid car conversations, and drug induced breakdowns. 

Somewhere amid this cacophony of relatable madness, a man in a hazmat suit barges in to alert everyone that dirty bombs have gone off in several major U.S. cities. It’s notable, and hilarious, that this threat does not become the central plot of the movie. It simply pushes existing tensions into unexplored territory. The spectre of finality prompts confrontation, newfound denial, conspiratorial paranoia, and the reinforcement of loving bonds. It all feels very true to how people can still center themselves even when thinking about the greater good. The darkness behind the comedy comes from the fact that everyone kind of shrugs at the apocalypse. The only question on every character’s mind is “Yeah, but what does this mean for my whole thing?” There is a part of me that occasionally succumbs to that instinct when I’m extremely depressed, fearful, or uncertain. I am holding onto my optimistic outlook on humanity, though. I think all of us ultimately care about all of us. It’s also important to acknowledge that we’re imperfect so that we can work on being better regardless of massive global threats forcing important conversations. 

Closing Feelings

We’ll always try to process and predict how humanity will weather the end of everything by telling stories. In CONTAGION, there is a reset when a vaccine is developed. The distribution of that vaccine is briefly explained in one of the final scenes; it will be a lottery system prioritizing those most essential and in need. Things calm down and the movie concludes because we need it to function as theoretical. 

Soderbergh took us to an imaginary place we’re now actually stuck in with no clean cinematic resolution coming. Vaccines exist, but they are simply being sprinkled over systems built to sustain inequity. Some parts of the world are not expected to get vaccine distribution until 2024. Between now and then, a part of society will move on with the help of escapist art that gets people back to a comfy (and dangerous) remove. I’m hoping we see more dramatic and comedic stories that reflect our flaws while reinforcing that we can do better.