We get a full-on Covid-19 film and it’s… not great.
SUMMARY
Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Linda (Anne Hathaway) are romantic partners for roughly a decade and they were starting to break up when Covid-19 causes London to lockdown. Paxton drives a delivery truck due to a criminal record from his youth and Linda works for a major fashion company whose chairman (Ben Stiller) forces her to lay off most of her co-workers at the beginning of lockdown. Having formerly worked at Harrods, she is put in charge of emptying the inventory of the department store during the first few weeks of the pandemic. At the same time, Paxton’s boss, Malcolm (Ben Kingsley), forges a new ID for Paxton so that he can do runs during lockdown, including Harrods. Realizing their schedules sync up, Linda hatches a plan for the two to steal a multimillion dollar diamond from a war-criminal and, in the process, their spark reignites.
END SUMMARY
This movie was, apparently, written on a dare in July of last year. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t make great work over a dare or a bet, nor that great work can’t happen over a short period, but it seems like doing a film about Covid while still dealing with Covid was always a recipe for disaster. Some of the situations in the film honestly make me bitter and angry at how optimistic we might have been about humanity at the beginning of this pandemic. Every mask-less person and prediction that lockdown will only be a few months made me want to scream. Also, and maybe it’s due to the way it had to be filmed, but this film seems wildly disjointed. It’s like it’s two movies crammed together badly, which, while a decent metaphor for the situation of the leads, does not work well as a narrative.
During the opening act, I was genuinely enjoying the movie, for the most part. The idea of being ready to break up with someone just as you are now literally forced to stay with them, and only them, for a long period is pretty great as a set-up for a romantic comedy. We get a ton of funny interactions between characters over Zoom, particularly involving Paxton’s brother David (Dule Hill) and his wife, Maria (Jazmyn Simon). Maria and Linda apparently had a sexual encounter a few months earlier and the way they talk is hilarious. The fact that both Paxton and Linda are kind of falling apart is, mostly, entertaining, and both Ejiofor and Hathaway are great performers that bring a lot of humor to the awkwardness. They have good chemistry when they’re together, but, weirdly, I don’t feel like they’re deeply attracted to each other. It’s just that the two clearly like to banter. When that’s what’s happening, I think the movie was pretty funny.
Unfortunately, the film had to have a plot, so we get the weirdest heist set-up ever. It’s completely a crime of opportunity that has to be literally given to the pair. They are, without their knowledge, both set-up to move a diamond that’s worth a fortune. The diamond will, and Linda is told this up-front, be put into a vault and kept locked for 50 years or so, completely unseen. No one will even inspect it before it’s locked away. It’s also revealed that the diamond is bought by a mass murdering dictator (or possibly a former US President) who literally had to use a third party anonymously because Harrods wasn’t going to sell to them. So, no moral quandary. The entire “heist” consists of switching the diamond for the fake display diamond which they were going to have to throw away. There’s no security, really, because Covid. It’s amazing how uninteresting this theft is and, honestly, it just feels like they kind of meander through it. It’s just not that interesting.
Overall, it’s not a great film, but it has a number of good bits and the Zoom parts do kind of capture how fucked up the world is during the pandemic. Still, maybe just rewatch Point Break if you want a heist involving two people with great sexual chemistry.
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