Language Lessons (2021 | USA | 91 minutes | Natalie Morales)
For many of us, the enduring aesthetic of the Covid-19 quarantine era is likely to be the Zoom screen. We’ve had a year of isolation, with these low-resolution screens as our primary source of social connection to our friends and families, so it’s inevitable that they have found their way into pandemic filmmaking. Although the coronavirus is never mentioned in Natalie Morales’s charming new dramedy, its easy enough to infer that the constraints of physical distancing played into the inspiration for making an entire movie entirely through video messaging and conference calling.
Here, the setup is straightforward: a guy (Mark Duplass) is gifted the surprise birthday gift of 100 sessions of Spanish immersion language sessions for his birthday from his well-meaning husband. His teacher (Morales), despite being reasonably confused about not being in on the surprise, puts up with her new student’s quirks and shapes the lessons around his daily routine. He’s ostentatiously wealthy in Oakland; she’s in Costa Rica and decidedly not getting rich of the $10/hour. Nevertheless, the format of the lesson and tragic turns in their lives, catalyze something approximating a fast friendship (albeit one with sometimes asymmetric emotional labor). Amazingly, the warmth of their performances overcome our collective screen fatigue, building relatable characters that are easy to invest in, even when they’re pixelated or forget to turn on the camera. Along the way, the emotionally affecting film captures many truths about The Way We Live(d) Now: terrible camera angles, the impossibility of accomplishing a non-cringeworthy musical performance over laggy video, as well as the the accelerated intimacies, real and imaginary, intentional and otherwise, that occur when new people skip the neutral location formalities and find their way instantly into our homes. Like the people that virtually kept many of us company over the last year, the relationship that Morales and Duplass create here also will have a way of finding its way into your heart.
Language Lessons played in the Narrative Features Spotlight at SXSW and is seeking distribution. (Header image credit: Jeremy Mackie)
Recovery (2021 | USA | 80 minutes | Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek)
The other approach to indie pandemic filmmaking involves ostententatiously limited small casts in mostly distanced settings, which is the approach that directors Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek seem to have taken with their absurd comedy set in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak. Aside from an opening sequence set at a crowded birthday party as as now-terrifying reminder of The Before Times — faces of strangers smashed close together, shared bowls of snacks, blowing out candles without the slightest fear of droplets — the rest of the film plays out largely between two sisters (Everton and co-screenwriter, and longtime comedy collaborator Whitney Call) in the aftermath of the whole world shutting down and sheltering in place.
Roommates in Albuquerque, they check in on their beloved Nana and get a heightened comedic report on the (too-real) horrors unfolding in her Washington retirement home. Their older sister is a parody of All The Worst Pandemic People (a mask-denier on a bargain cruise) and can’t be relied on to save the day; so the roommate sisters pack up their car with enough snacks and sanitizing supplies to make the long drive to Kennewick themselves. On the road, they navigate viral fears while also juggling the uncertainties of interrupted Tinder connections in Covid-Times and the lengths you’ll go to to avoid touching a gross surface or set foot in a convenience store. As the miles on the odometer tick upward, the gags get more and more absurd while staying mostly distanced: a bizarre book on tape, increasingly unsettling phone calls from their pet sitter, crazy dreams, and a deeply weird visit to retrieve Nana’s Bernese mountain dog. The actors clearly have a well-established and fun rapport, skewering the evolving uncertainty of These Times with good humor while also capturing the infuriating feeling of being the lone voice of responsibility in a sea of coronavirus deniers. It’s both an artifact of the last strange year, maybe even one that we could revisit in a few years and still have a laugh, which is some kind of miracle.
Recovery premiered at SXSW in the Narrative Features section and is currently seeking distribution.