| B- | Austin Film Festival 2021 |
This was a COVID film. It not only took place during the worst period of the pandemic, but also was all Zoom meetings and FaceTime calls. While technically this allowed the writer/director to shoot a movie during the pandemic (and kudos to everyone involved for pulling that off), I think I’ve already seen that trick done better.
The film was like a bunch of short stories or miniature character studies. They were all chained together because each scene had one person from the previous scene in it. But there was no set of characters you followed throughout the whole movie.
Some of the scenes were interesting and surprising. And some of the performances were really good, given the “I have to so my own makeup, lighting, and film it alone in my apartment” process. Elaine May (yes, that Elaine May) and Sandra Oh were especially impressive.
But in the long run, other scenes were not great. And we didn’t really get to see characters dealing with their issues over time (which I prefer). Instead we got brief glimpses into their most intimate moments, which felt almost intrusive because we didn’t really know these people. So this movie didn’t grab me the way I wanted.
