alone together2022.
Written and directed by Katie Holmes.
With Katie Holmes, Jim Sturgess, Derek Luke, Melissa Leo, Zosia Mamet, Luke Kirby and Becky Ann Baker.
SYNOPSIS:
Two strangers entangled in bad relationships end up at the same Airbnb in upstate New York.
As two locked-down Airbnb strangers (June and Charlie, played by Katie Holmes and Jim Sturgess with chemistry from a college science lab assignment gone wrong) get to know each other, they start chatting about their favorite books. . Mentions of June Transit, stating that she is not interested in plot but in character studies and human relationships. Exercising a triple function as author and director of alone togetherKatie Holmes seems to be striving for something similar here, except the script and story are about as interesting as watching the grass grow, with a lifelong movie story trajectory.
alone together isn’t just boring, as it also takes a questionable approach to character behavior in the age of the pandemic (the story begins in March 2020, just as America began to enter a state of caution and locking). Throughout the film, there are TV clips of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo advising the country on the seriousness of COVID-19 and how individuals can protect themselves.
However, that doesn’t stop June from going to that remote retreat her boyfriend (Derek Luke) has booked and getting mad at him because he’s more focused on staying with his parents for a few days (who are rightly terrified of what is happening). From there, it’s safe to assume that once June finds out the house has been double-booked and she starts interacting with Charlie, she’ll become a less selfish and wiser person.
Instead, the characters are mostly unaware of the pandemic around them (although they cut out homemade masks once people are advised to start wearing them, only for no one to put them on much ). This begs the question of why this is a pandemic-era film in the first place, given that all it does is make the center-bonding lovebirds somewhat unsympathetic.
Suppose you wonder why June flirts and eventually sleeps with someone else. In this case, it’s because she feels her boyfriend has pulled away while suspecting he might be cheating on her since there’s a recent photo on social media of him with an attractive co-worker. That’s barely enough evidence to start sleeping with someone else, and the movie doesn’t benefit from having selfish characters since both sides here are one-dimensional and flat with nothing thoughtful to say. Katie Holmes seems to think we should encourage this romance, doubling down in the third act with forced, contrived writing inviting us to do so while using COVID death insensitively.
The previous 80 minutes contain virtually no conflict, with Charlie (I’ll say Jim Sturgess does his best to give this character an extra nuance or two, to no avail) coming off as the perfect guy from the start, wronged by an ex- serial deceitful girlfriend and somewhat disconnected from her mother (Melissa Leo, briefly appearing a few times via computer screens). The characters mirror each other in some ways, but nearly every feature or exposition offering is sidelined or meaningless.
There’s nothing wrong with lockdown romance (whether it’s characters falling in love or marriages breaking up, and we’ve seen some pretty good ones so far). Still, alone together is as dry as the Sahara Desert and can’t find a clever or engaging way to incorporate the horror of March 2020 into the lives of these two beyond mostly ignoring it. Not to mention that the dialogue between these two is awful and superficial. Maybe Katie Holmes should stick with something more plot-driven in the future.
Scintillating Myth Rating – Movie: ★ ★ / Movie: ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the editor of Flickering Myth Reviews. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter Where Letter boxor email me at [email protected]
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