In the curiously small catalog of put up COVID-19 movies, We are gathered right here right now stands out as an experiment that works properly as a result of simplistic characterization of a second. Filters are off, and the awkwardness of sure relationships is discarded upon disaster. We all stared at one thing darkish within the face and we weren’t ready for that. Films like this present ourselves in our truest kind, typically one which isn’t excellent.
We are gathered right here right now is a pc display screen movie that reveals a household reunited throughout a horrible second. A member of the family is passing away attributable to COVID issues and a health care provider has advised them that is the one strategy to say goodbye. No hospital visits. It was too dangerous.
So an preliminary video name units off a radical evaluation of a household damaged by totally different circumstances. From non secular variations, to politics in 2020, there are a number of the reason why they’re estranged, and just one for coming collectively.
We’ve solely skilled this setting in horrors and thrillers. Drama isn’t fairly widespread as a result of, let’s face it, the emotional flows are totally different. It isn’t a simple process. However, director Paul Boyd does sufficient to convey a way of urgency that permits the feelings to reach in a 74-minute movie that goes forwards and backwards always. We are gathered right here right now is efficient and its DNA consists of common insights, and good actors doing their greatest in very small display screen house.
The movie may very well be a very dramatic dialog going down on a pc display screen. It’s not like COVID didn’t truly carry these to the desk. Nevertheless, the dynamics of the household are corrupt sufficient to permit us to note the actual story right here. It’s not {that a} household removes variations by tragedies and what’s carried out is finished. It’s that you simply’re by no means ready to handle this message, and if you notice it, it’s simply too late. It’s the shock that hurts.
In We are gathered right here right now, Boyd contains every thing within the menu. It turns into nearly absurd that they’re so various, they should combat for nearly every thing. But going to those extremes, he injects universality to a narrative that’s already common. It didn’t impact me, and a few conflicts appeared a bit pointless.
The equation in We are gathered right here right now is revered nearly utterly. There aren’t many paths to discover in a movie that’s already set in telling a tragic story by the response of these associated. But on the very finish, a couple of minutes of footage will actually get to you. The that means of “too late” is addressed by silence, remorse and grief. And it’s all carried out by a pc display screen. An excellent perception in making us discover the worth of actual contact and the horrors of expertise dependence.
It’s curious to suppose how the movie would have labored if COVID hadn’t been as contagious. Would this household have “reunited” differently? Would they’ve been so open? Screens had the power of bringing us collectively in occasions the place isolation was the rule. Did additionally they make us extra open to actual emotions?
Founder of Screentology. Member of the OFCS. RT Certified Critic
Dog dad.