WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
Lockdown. Life interrupted. What reaction do we tend to embody when all that we’re used to gets involuntarily aborted, throwing routines ingrained within us into chaos, and additionally causing a newly formed and equally unanticipated magnitude of isolation that’s crippling? Even as things might only be on the horizon and we’re not even convinced we WILL actually be impacted by such events, does it not still bring about reflection, re-evaluation, and other things inside that we didn’t want to confront but are now forced to? It is the year 2020, and for a group of people including Elijah (Kevin Scott Allen), Mark (Greg Poppleton), Emma (Jessica Castello), Sally (Ruike Kuang), Heather (Sheila Ball), Vicky (Erin Connor), Jerrell (Andre Doc Williams), Malik (Shaun Huff), Imani (La Rivers), Levi (Gil Ben-Moshe), Byron (James Morcan), Clarita (Dilia Corujo), Esther (Lital Luzon), Violetta (Lara Bossi), Ayanda (Chantelle Peters), and others tied to them, it will become one of the most revealing, impactful, challenging, and transformative years they’ve ever faced–and emphatically required to grow from.
Next, my Mind:
Arguably one of THE most overtly ambitious indie feature film projects this critic has personally come across over the nine plus years covering the overall genre, one must understand it will take a certain measure of patience and deep interest in story and character-driven execution, delivered with evident purpose and deft but slowly building emotional investment to take in this 145-minute epic from writer/director/producer James Morcan, producer Gil Ben-Moshe, and co-producers Andre Doc Williams, La Rivers, Oren Ben-Moshe, and Simon Carter (who also took on cinematography and editing duties as well). I will freely admit I had my initial reservations as the film began, trying to determine precisely how its chosen format and grander story direction was going to keep my attention for such an extended runtime. BUT, I am being very honest when I say it was WORTH the time without hesitation, not only for the relevance of its core thematic foray, but for the manner in which it spoke to and put on display the globally impacting, life-altering, most ultimately coalescing, though severely taxing and testing, time in recent history–COVID-19.
Now, you could have an initial reaction of “Oh my God, we’ve seen and heard enough about Covid-19!”, but trust me when I say that viewing and absorbing this narrative which unfolds between a huge host of interconnected people spread across seventeen cities, five countries, and four continents is nothing less than an affecting, effective, and transparent portrait of our encounter with a world-changing virus, how it compelled us as individuals to have to face our faults and failures, but then ideally come to stirring realizations about ourselves and the relationships we have or need to reconcile, re-assess where we are and are still going, and finally UNIFY as a single human society. This was the foundational and, I then felt, exceptionally portrayed message this film was intended to convey, and so for the filmmakers here to choose to TAKE THE TIME to fully expand on this in the ways they chose to makes what we see as the final product more than noteworthy to let wash over you and remind you of exactly what we’ve come through and the ongoing ramifications it represents for our lives, both culturally and as individual people residing on this planet.
It’s ok to be moving forward FROM it all, but after seeing this film, especially the finale that puts such a stirringly potent and heart-string tugging exclamation point on events, I hope we don’t LOSE the connection between us as human beings that got established from Covid-19’s emergence. As to the massive amounts of thematic leanings this film offers, it is hard to hit them all, but assuredly included amidst all the character stories we are witness to are reactions to the first lockdowns, conspiracy theories, social media’s corrupted/fake news leanings, religious judgement, remote relationships forming, Zoom-based interactions, isolation, the grander chaos of quarantine, political tension paired with drastically varying opinions about how it is all being handled, denial or non-acceptance of “the new normal”, government controlling the narrative, coping mechanisms, sense of desperation, rationalizations and justifications, the uncertainty of the future, the inevitability of change, the dangers of exposing truths, deceptions and manipulations, what we confess, bearing our faults and regrets, understanding what’s most important, seeing the “masks” we wear, the familial and relational storms due to separation, distancing, and overwhelming realities, it all gets addressed and even then, it doesn’t seem to cover every element here.
But, what makes the largest significant outcome is the healing, absolution, acceptance, and awareness that manifested from it all, and again, the film’s finale takes this on just beautifully and credibly. Ok, so anyone who’s read my reviews in the past knows I would normally make it a point to highlight IN DETAIL the performances of each primary lead actor in a film. However, just being realistic here, this film is the GENUINE definition (and then some!) of an ensemble cast where even the leads are legion and to take a deep dive into everyone specifically would make this review become the newest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (did I just date myself there?? Oops! Ok, newest ONLINE edition!), and hence I sincerely hope ALL who I would deem the lead actors who read this will understand that I absolutely enjoyed and admired each and every performance you provided, for they all not only embodied the nature of each character, but you BELIEVABLY depicted the person you played with total conviction and, I felt, utterly grounded energy, emotional viability, and therefore created an atmosphere that made me invest in each story being told as well as the greater whole and how it all morphed into ONE narrative by the end. I say a HUGE “Bravo!!” for being a part such an formidable endeavor and making it successful.
I will also give the same degrees of acknowledgements and congratulatory sentiments to any of the other primary leads I may not have mentioned in my synopsis above as well as to all the key supporting players involved, including but not at all limited to Crystal J. Huang, Brett Partridge, Audrey Nitschke (what a film to DEBUT in!), Oren Ben-Moshe, Adriana Moccia, Adryanna Elmendorf, Jose Cuttray, Johnathan Napoleon Glenn Jr., Kelvin Wilson, Geoff Sirmai, Michael Gencher, Lyndon Hoffman-Lew, Yonatan Barukh, and Alfia Nitschke plus a HOST of others. And so, in total, “Anno 2020” IS a radically aggressive exercise in independent cinema and the fearless artists behind it who have definitively interpreted one of the most defining times in our world’s history in a way that ends up illustrating what we MUST treasure most, what we learned, what was exposed for consideration and hopefully rectified, that we need to simply take the time to EXIST, and that we were brought back to each other. A song from the popular musical “Rent” asked numerically and in words “525,600 minutes, how do you measure a year in the life?” Well, I personally offer that this film did just that.
STAR RATING (out of 5):
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
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