Delayed Reaction: The Pink Cloud

Premise: A poisonous pink cloud shows up one day and traps everyone in the world inside for a long time.

 

Never has a precredits disclaimer felt more necessary. This film begins by pointing out that it was written in 2017 and filmed in 2019. So, the fact that the movie plays like a direct response to the self-quarantining and distancing due to COVID is purely coincidental. And, you don't have to look much deeper than the surface to realize that the movie is about a lot of modern concerns beyond the coincidental similarities to the global pandemic.

 

Like many SciFi movies, the premise requires some suspension of disbelief to work. The idea is that this poisonous pink cloud rolls in one day and immediately traps people where they are, without exception or wiggle room. The lead couple, Giovana (Renata de Lelis) and Yago (Eduardo Mendonca), are trapped together despite just meeting the day before. One of Giovana's friends is trapped in her apartment alone. Yago's sick father only has his live-in nurse. The movie quickly establishes that the government has set up a tube system to deliver whatever people need. It never explains why people can't have hazmat suits delivered so they can get to communal spaces or why people in apartment buildings can't move between apartments, let alone how production of anything is able to continue in these conditions. The point is to examine how people live when isolated but connected. On that level, it's quite good. Giovana and Yago inevitably get closer and de facto married. They go through all the couple problems on a heightened scale. The longer the cloud stays around, the more people adapt to it. Pop culture is centered around it. Some people start to worship it. Others go crazy from the isolation. Virtual reality and video dating become more common. Writer/director Iuli Gerbase has created a very specific scenario to address ideas that he otherwise couldn't. While the movie takes place in only a handful of rooms, Gerbase makes it feel much larger with a few Zoom calls, fake TV broadcasts, and shots of the outside from their window. The lead performances are very good. Giovana and Yago's relationship feels real but heightened.

 

I couldn't quite turn my brain off enough to buy into this world completely. Setting up a tube delivery system but not being able to figure out a way to move people is an inconsistency I couldn't get over. It's also strange to me that VR didn't have a bigger role early on. Then there's the personal, unintended COVID connections that just bummed me out. I live alone and have spent most of the last year, like a lot of people, really isolated. I see most of my friends staggeringly less than I'm used to and the idea of dating has felt impossible. This is the last type of movie I want to be watching right now. Then again, there were people making Outbreak and Contagion top streaming movies last spring. We all have different appetites.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend